The Second Mowing
Occupied with things beyond himself,
A man is making a huge circle. The second mowing
Well under way, the windrows upon windrows,
Black scatterings of crows, ahead of the rotary blades,
Making their own hay. And the narrowing drone
As the centre is approached, unconsciously.
Who will overtake it, him or me?
For a moment the sound is lost. Then back it comes,
The tractor, from the end of the long acre,
Riding its soundwave. I am just a window
In the distance, a winking pane of glass
At the edge of the work, my openings, my closings
Immaterial to the bite of the mighty tyre-treads
Into the terrestrial, as the pattern appears.
Harry Clifton
