Harvest Nocturne

The ripened grain drooped in the cloudless heat, As hungrily the sun took gold for gold; All day the sickles burned through brittle wheat, And now the sheaves lie heaped as day turns old.

From trampled nests bewildered field mice creep, And quail pipe in the broken stubble where Once whispering grain made music for their sleep, And find a hushed and windless silence there.

Field daisies, caught among the winnowed sheaves, Droop wanly and their withered petals fall; A nighthawk swoops above the field and weaves A whistling pattern through the crickets’ call.

Day slants toward the west; across the light Insistently the darkening shadows pull; A bright star peers from the bluing steel of night, And on the evening’s rim the moon turns full.