The Hour on Which We Look

Now is the harvest of Death.
Now the red scythe-blade of slaughter
Sweeps through the children of Eve.
We stand in a circle of silence,
The wings of the Reaper are hissing –
And what could our speaking achieve? 

And we, as we stand in our silence
Hear the laugh of the sower of fate,
Who scattered the seed in the hearts of the tribes
And who reaps now the hate.

Only the music of a wild wind in the trees,
Or the rumble of thunder, the roar of the rain,
The shouting of demons who ride on the storm-winds of wrath
Can tell of the tempest that howls like a wolf on the plain;
Where the earth carried wheat, and the waters were sweet,
But now stink with the blood of the slain.

1940

Read the book: Water at the Roots: Poems and Insights of a Visionary Farmer