First mowings set the summer's rituals:
Alfalfa mounds, wet fur, crushed bones,
Sweet-scented hay in the weathered barn
To fatten still other beasts for slaughter.
Scythings: the seasons' sharpening stone.
While on the breeze as evening settles,
Lingers the smell of wildrose petals,
Of honeysuckle, where fieldmice nestle,
Spared for now from the razored steel,
Springing life in those shearing blades,
Whose shadows blot a blooded horizon
Where a striking-red sunset blazes, fades. (39)
