Travelling Standing Still/To One Loved Wholly Within Wisdom

by Genevieve Taggard

TO ONE LOVED WHOLLY
WITHIN WISDOM

Someone will reap you like a field,
Pile your gathered plunder,

Garner what you bring to yield,
Turn your beauty under.

In cruel usages, in such
Sickle-cutting, heaping,

Certain women toil too much,
Weary of their reaping.

Someone else may winnow you;
Someone else may plunder.

I have cut too many new
Swathes, and broken under

Soil that should have fallow lain
To be greedy either

For the shattered stalk, the stain
Where the clusters wither.