A mysterious gleam of life
turns on itself in a radiant spiral
in which each small square
contains a spiral, a face,
or a tiny window.
Some squares are left blank,
but the brightness of the red,
purple and white colours
is vibrant and tells us,
by means of the surrounding foliage,
that this is a place where we can rest.
This garden of gardens
has the haunting effect
of a child's view of heaven,
or a Celtic island where the dead
are buried under monolithic stones,
an ancient city sunk to the bottom
of the ocean, or the reaches of the Styx
clutching at the spirits of the dead
as they live on with the stars.
They seem to be what they are harvesting:
bottoms, breasts and hips cluster
plumply in the sun, a fuss of shines
is wrung from the oval of their elbows.
The brush plucks them from the wheat.
Such roundness, such a round harvest
of circles, such a work of pure lines.
Flesh and shadow mesh into each other.
But not this one, this yellow-hatted man:
his clothes are a cloud gathering the weather,
his eyes alert, his hands tight-fisted,
his ears fixed listening to the crows.
When he is finished summer will be over: