
The Kelly Song Collective
Till
​
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.
​
​
© Audsongs 2009

Written around the time of The Urban Peasants 2.0, but never made it to the stage as near as I can remember.