The Summer Harvest

The golden crowns of the standing wheat crops sway,

Kissing goodbye to the Spring wind passing by.

Crows, peacocks, and birds of all manner,

Peck at the fallen grains as time goes by.

It is the end of Spring, and Bihu has just passed.

The farmer must harvest his standing crops,

Lest the Western clouds gather with thunderclaps,

And unwanted rains dash the farmer’s hopes.

The Monsoon wind now roars and extends,

Bihar to Kerala, across central Indian plains.

From the southern hills to the Gangetic mud-flats,

The farmer now dreads rains all the same.

From sunrise to the settling of the evening dust,

The farmer hops, reaps, and bundles his crop.

For now, the wheat must lay in-wait at the end of the hay,

The bundles spread flat, the farmer dreading the delay.

Having prayed all Spring to the rain-gods,

The farmer now supplicates the wind,

To keep the clouds at bay,

For rain will spell the death of the hay.

The farmer goes home, heart in his mouth,

May the wind-god delay the Western cloud, he prays

Hay, now cut and spread flat across the field,

Dreams the farmer “The wheat dies and decays.”

While Sun and Rain are gods of the standing crops,

Wind and Moon are gods of the harvested hay.

Alas, a farmer knows not rest—living eternally at odds,

Changing his allegiance, and his gods.