Poetry Archives

I am a reaper whose muscles set at sundown.  All my oats 
  are cradled.
But I am too chilled, and too fatigued to bind them.
  And I hunger.

I crack a grain between my teeth.  I do not taste it.
I have been in the fields all day.  My throat is dry.
  I hunger.

My eyes are caked with dust of oatfields at harvest-time.
I am a blind man who stares across the hills, seeking
  stack’d fields of other harvesters.

It would be good to see them . . crook’d, split, and
  iron-ring’d handles of the scythes.  It would be
  good to see them, dust-caked and blind.  I hunger.

(Dusk is a strange fear’d sheath their blades are dull’d in.)
My throat is dry.  And should I call, a cracked grain
  like the oats . . . echo—

I fear to call.  What should they hear me, and offer
  me their grain, oats, or wheat, or corn?  I have
  been in the fields all day.  I fear I could not taste
  it.  I fear knowledge of my hunger.

My ears are caked with dust of oatfields at harvest-time.
I am a deaf man who strains to hear the calls of other
  harvesters whose throats are also dry.

It would be good to hear their songs . . reapers of
  the sweet-stalk’d cane, cutters of the corn . .
  even though their throats cracked and the
  strangeness of their voices deafened me.

I hunger.  My throat is dry.  Now that the sun has
  set and I am chilled, I fear to call.  (Eoho, my
  brothers!)

I am a reaper.  (Eoho!)  All my oats are cradled.
  But I am too fatigued to bind them.  And I hunger.
  I crack a grain.  It has no taste to it.
  My throat is dry . . .

O my brothers, I beat my palms, still soft, against the
  stubble of my harvesting.  (You beat your soft
  palms, too.)  My pain is sweet.  Sweeter than
  the oats or wheat or corn.  It will not bring me
  knowledge of my hunger.