EIGHTH IDYLL

Days of the Seven Sleeping Brothers

Down from heavy, overbloated clouds,
it streams the fields, the riverbanks,
and farmers pacing their parlors stop short
for another look at the hay stacked out there,
the rye field flattened, beaten down,
the pasture all awash.

Now they'll be out there, draped in drenched sacking,
to tug and prod the soaking wet cattle,
or -- wading a widening pond --
struggle to re-rope a horse staked out in the clover.

Or stretched out in a darkened shed
to listen, while onto the tin over the granary
as on milk pails left out by the well,
the rain bears down without a break, one steady
downpour
on buildings isolated, plots abandoned,
on shrubs, and fields, and muddied streams.

Till one day, all at once, it stops.
And farmers, out from parlor or shed,
range the yard and study the look of the sky overhead,
still disbelieving, skeptical
even as, over the woods, it starts clearing.
Then, towards evening, a wind shakes the last drops down
and, all night long, drives clouds across the sky.

By morning, there's a gurgling out of every grove:
the rousing grouse,
and then their loud drumming, at dawn, as though of drums
beaten to greet the rising midsummer sun.


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