Segal

RYE

 

Half spent the month of March.

A dry wind, the weather's tart.

The gorse is red, so is the heath.

Nothing green in the fields,

Neither hay stuff nor bread stuff.

Nothing green, nothing.

Nothing except the rye

In the humped fields against the hill's flank.

The rye mocks the winter,

Rye scorned, forgotten

By the well-begotten,

Rye, harvest of poor soils,

Harvest of poor souls

Green rye laughing,

Light-hearted rye singing,

As the poor sing

As the poor sing

In poverty.

 

June 1964.