The Kelly Song Collective

Till

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A waltz time sky steps on a plain

where harvest ghosts are dancing.

No pulse can spin a weather vane,

cocksure of no romancing.

 

But still the acre’s there to feel

the dig and jab of metal.

The only sound’s from other steel:

the cat-call of the kettle.

 

(So, Like) And I plow.

I’m a donkey.  I’m a mule.

Oh I plow your will

as I till.

 

Where blackbirds hush themselves to hear

the melody of reaping,

there’s not an eighth note pushing clear

from songs the soil’s been keeping.

 

The echo of a crop is here

like bed sheets on a wire.

But memory is impotent

to seed fallow desire.

 

To fertilize an April field—

a miracle of sowing—

machinery that doesn’t yield

up what its blade is knowing,

 

Must cultivate a silence in

the earth’s unheard intentions.

And turn her over, hide its sin

in yellow fall conventions.

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© Audsongs 2009