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Thursday, October 18, 2012

Bleak Harvest

Photo by Mary Mansfield


Under the harvest moon
My fields lay barren,
A growing season lost
In the drifting confusion of my life.
The reapers stand silent
As I ponder a long winter
With nothing to fill my larder
And carry me through to the spring.


~~~ This poem was written for a prompt from Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, asking us to think about the “mechanical harvest.”

11 comments:

Ella said...

So fun to hear your voice! This poem speaks volumes~ I love how you did this! Clever and so true~

Ella said...

By true I mean how we feel when the crops don't come through....I have had this feeling lately! True for me~

Isadora Gruye said...

love the distant landscape, mary! I also like this poem, with the mechanical undertones and nod to dormancy, you evoked an emotion in me which I still cannot describe but cannot scratch from my skin. Viva la

Janine Bollée said...

Well done you to get the sound so nicely in place.
This poem strikes a chord: our apple tree blew over and unlike other years when we had cookers till March, we now face an appleless winter, and it really saddens me.
Makes you realize how this summer's weather has affected many people.

Kerry O'Connor said...

This is a very good way for us to think of what it means when harvest is over.

Brother Ollie said...

truth - what a terrible year for farmers

Herotomost said...

So many thoughts about reasons the crops aren't in...but the reason in this one sounds personal. Bleak and wonderfully full at the same time. Loved it.

Laurie Kolp said...

I also see this as a woman entering menopause...

Hannah said...

Oh, yes...sometimes this field meant to be full, full enough to last through winter is seemingly empty inspiration...poetically bleak, as said and beautiful, Mary!! Love your reading!

Margaret said...

... I drove through Illinois in late July... this has GOT to be a true poem for many a farmer in that and surrounding states!

vivinfrance said...

Likely to be happening a lot this year. I've just been up to the local market, and the fruit and vegetables were neither as plentiful nor as good as usual. A dire year.