Sarah Das Gupta
Safely Gathered In
(Remembering Thomas Hardy)
Plates of newly baked cottage loaves,
wooden platters of ripe apples
green, brushed, touched with red,
round, juicy, tempting
as that fruit in Eden.
Butter, freshly churned,
a creamy, soft confection.
Round, lunar satellites of cheese
mimicking the full Harvest Moon,
shining golden in the summer sky.
Laid out on trestle tables,
flagons of foaming beer,
eagerly poured into frothing tankards.
Whole well- cured hams
with coats of yellow bread crumbs,
await the silver carving knives
gleaming in the bright moonlight.
Harvest cakes drip
with white icing sugar,
amid bunches of golden- eared corn
decorating the harvest table.
Trout, fresh from the mill stream,
Lie open-mouthed and bleary-eyed
At the munificence before them.
Milk-maids in sprigged muslin dresses,
gather in a colourful crowd,
surveying the village lads
in smart smocks and breeches.
A fiddler is tuning up,
feet begin tapping to the old songs.
Shyly couples get in line,
ancient melodies accompany
the youthful dancers.
Moonlight floods over the empty fields,
the shadows lengthen among the trees.
The corn lies safe in wooden barns,
Music drifts out over the meadows.
The old rhythm of harvest celebration
throbs through the mothy darkness.
(Remembering Thomas Hardy)
Plates of newly baked cottage loaves,
wooden platters of ripe apples
green, brushed, touched with red,
round, juicy, tempting
as that fruit in Eden.
Butter, freshly churned,
a creamy, soft confection.
Round, lunar satellites of cheese
mimicking the full Harvest Moon,
shining golden in the summer sky.
Laid out on trestle tables,
flagons of foaming beer,
eagerly poured into frothing tankards.
Whole well- cured hams
with coats of yellow bread crumbs,
await the silver carving knives
gleaming in the bright moonlight.
Harvest cakes drip
with white icing sugar,
amid bunches of golden- eared corn
decorating the harvest table.
Trout, fresh from the mill stream,
Lie open-mouthed and bleary-eyed
At the munificence before them.
Milk-maids in sprigged muslin dresses,
gather in a colourful crowd,
surveying the village lads
in smart smocks and breeches.
A fiddler is tuning up,
feet begin tapping to the old songs.
Shyly couples get in line,
ancient melodies accompany
the youthful dancers.
Moonlight floods over the empty fields,
the shadows lengthen among the trees.
The corn lies safe in wooden barns,
Music drifts out over the meadows.
The old rhythm of harvest celebration
throbs through the mothy darkness.