Haibun- Last Field, by Clive Donovan

The Harvest Moon: drawing for A Pastoral Scene, by Samuel Palmer (England) 1832

Haibun- Last Field
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As we took the animals meandering slowly home, he was teaching me how to tell if moon is waxing or waning: Look for where the horns are pointing; left for wax, right for wane. Or, put another way; pre moon or down moon [with small letters, p or d]. But I was getting confused with all this, mesmerized to stillness by the labourers in the field, who were bathed with radiant illumination by light of the harvest moon.

in silver moonshine
familiar yellow flees
corn turns pale grey

This last field is always a difficult one to manage, squeezed as it is on a just about workable sloping patch of an otherwise steep hill where the wind runs free. But it is fertile and lush and worth the effort.

still much to gather
and the bales are weighty
sweating in moonlight

As we enter deep evening, tired muscles and bones still toil, for we all, even the sheep, sense the coming of the rain.

from shadows we watch
harvesters cut swollen grain
bread for the dark days

Clive Donovan

This poem was first published in Time Haiku.

Clive Donovan is the author of two poetry collections, The Taste of Glass (Cinnamon Press) and Wound Up With Love (Lapwing) and is published in a wide variety of magazines including Acumen, Agenda, Crannog, Ekphrastic Review and Popshot. He lives in Totnes, Devon, UK. He is a Pushcart and Forward Prize nominee for 2022’s best individual  poems. 

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