(The Surrey Hills 1944)
The mower relentlessly scythes
through the swaying grass,
with all its flowery jewels.
A lark’s nest falls victim
to the executioner’s blade.
Field mice flee before
the flashing metal fangs.
Butterflies hover, mesmerised
by the magnetic power
of certain death.
That impossibly blue sky
throws its airy net
over distant valleys
and far hills.
Haymakers’ weather
at last!
In the heat of midsummer,
the swathes are slowly drying.
The hay bob’s been busy
tossing and turning
the sleepy clumps.
Soon dry grass is neatly raked
in military ranks, under
the machine’s strident orders.
All week the weather holds,
the morning mist drifts away.
An officious red baler disturbs
the lark’s song high above
in the endless blue.
Neat bales of new hay
form into rigid lines.
Brash binder twine
strangles the dying poppies
The German prisoners
are loading the hay,
laughing with the local boys,
Now evening falls,
swallows fly low, over
the twilight fields.
Breasting the waves of darkness,
they fish the shoals of insects.
Note: In World War 2 German prisoners worked on our farm on the North Downs in
Southern England. I was 3 years old and remember it and my family talking about it after
the war.
Sarah Das Gupta is an ex- teacher, aged 84, who worked in UK, India, Africa. She began writing aged 80, following a disabling accident; Her work has been published in over 25 different countries. She is a nominee for the Pushcart, Best of the Net and a Dwarf Star.