Ploughing the Lea - by
There’s as mony turns to the plooman’s craft
/ As jags on a common thistle;
/ There’s fower lang seasons ‘tween field and laft,
/ Wi’…
farming
from vii. flock master - by
Three weeks: one field / a deluge / of births and deaths.
Plantain - by
Plantain suckers dib the dirt
/ and tip the crumbled sod.
/ Their questing noses, moistly new,
/ run at independence
/ with pushy pokes.
/
/ Each last, older inch
/ runs…
Cattle-count - by
1, the rust-red one, hide-gleaming:
/ 2, the blackandwhite one,
/ like a pied crow:
/ 3, the zebra-hide, long belly-knotted:
/ 4, the…
The Mitchells - by
I am seeing this: two men are sitting on a pole
/ they have dug a hole for and will, after dinner,…
Coalend Hill Farm 1962 - by
I don’t remember the Beanley orra-man,
/ his boots down the lonnen black as a wet day, his caravan
/ under a butchered elm’s…
Taxman - by
Seven scythes leaned at the wall.
/ Beard upon golden beard
/ The last barley load
/ Swayed through the yard.
/ The girls uncorked the ale.
/ Fiddle and…
A Plooman’s Lament - by
I’m fee’d tae a fermer in Fife,
/ I’se warrant we pairt at the term;
/ I was ne’er sae…
Farm Sale - by
Everything is numbered and must go
/ so he sits at the back of the shed
/ while the crowd pick over…
The Big Mistake - by
the shepherd on the train told me
/
/ is to clip hill milking ewes too soon
/
/ I put my newspaper down;
/ he’d got my…
Herd - by
A single dog is sent Away bye.
/ Mothers, a day’s warmth in their bodies,
/ rise reluctant from nests of flattened grass;
/ barge hard…