The last field cut.

The combine’s growls subside.

The stubble, golden in the autumn sun,

A table spread for pigeons

 Who, in hungry hordes,

Fly down to glean among the pimpernels.

Another harvest

Ripens in the hedge -

Hips, haws and bitter sloes and blackberries,

And feathered reapers

Gather on the boughs

Beaks sickle-sharp to take this harvest home.

One finch, the boldest

Of his timid clan,

Forsakes the hedgerow berries for the grain

Which laden trailers

Jolting from the field

Have spilled in golden streams upon the road.

His whole attention

Taken by his meal

He neither sees nor hears the coming car –

Flutter of feathers

On the metalled road,

A moment’s agony and he is still.

Then from an oak

A hungry crow flies down,

The little corpse to him a welcome meal.

The hedgerow birds,

The grain, the speeding cars

Mean that, for him, harvest has just begun.