The Gleaning Field There is something more than nature, here. Encircled by trees that at once protect and threaten; trunks writhe toward the human forms with a lithe, sinister energy. Women. I notice they are all women. Stooped to labour in fields of crimson and burnished gold, under a heavy grey sky, darkening with dusk. They are wearing white, and red. The colours of sacrifice, of victimhood. Of revolution. In half the field, the corn is still high; a barrier from the lighted window of a cottage glimpsed in the gloaming dark. It is home to someone, comfort, warmth; but they are separate, discrete. There is a quiet urgency about their work. As if they know their lives, these rights will soon be restricted, enclosed. Louise Longson For information on gleaning rights and legal/social changes to the rural poor: http://www.criminalhistorian.com/gleaning-poor-women-and-the-law/ Louise Longson is an Oxfordshire-based writer, who has been published by One Hand Clapping, Fly on the Wall and Dreich. A qualified psychotherapist, working for a charity serving those distressed by loneliness, she has finally cleared enough of her own head-space and house-space to pursue her writing in earnest. Twitter @LouisePoetical
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The Ekphrastic Review
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February 2021
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