Poetry

The Farm Terraces

Les Murray

Beautiful merciless work
around the slopes of Earth
terraces cut by curt hoe
at the orders of hunger
or a pointing lord.
Levels eyed up to rhyme
copied from grazing animals
round the steeps of Earth,
balconies filtering water down
stage to stage of drop.
Wind-stirred colours of crop
swell between walked bunds
that recall the beast tracks,
harvests down from the top
by hands long in the earth.
Baskets of rich made soil
boosted up poor by the poor,
ladder by freestone prop
stanzas of chant-long lines
by backwrenching slog, before
money, gave food and drunk
but rip now like slatted sails
(some always did damn do)
down the abrupts of earth.