Cultivators
We,
who work with earth and steel
and feel winter frozen in our hands
where fields are looms,
weave the patterns of crops;
damp loam flows like silk
through shuttling metal.
And our hills,
with their wild uncurbable wills,
may be hard to till
but are easy to love,
steep work weakens the tractor
but strengthens the heart.
This poem was also published by Kestrel
in ‘Strictly Private’ edited by Roger McGough