A wind well-laden with scent and heat
Drifts through the saplings' ragged crests
And leans on the lovely curving breasts
Of the cool green wheat.
The curtseying harvest, hated in light,
Ripples and runs from the air's embrace.
Over their waves the white clouds chase
Grey shade out of sight.
Yellow weed-bloom where the headland narrows,
Daggered thistles in purple pride;
Cockatoos feeding, watchful-eyed,
Snow-flaked along the furrows.
Darting parakeets down the track
Hurl like a handful of jewels tossed
Into the blue and therein lost,
No one to fling them back.
All the Wimmera is under cover
Heaven and the harvest, verge to verge,
Joined by the heat-wave's silver surge
Just where the blue bends over.
The world that the harvest grain is clothing
Seems to descend and disappear
In a scintillation of aching air
Over the edge of nothing.
And the rolling wheat and the world appear
To turn so softly through time and space
The air of It passing upon my face
Scarcely ruffles my hair.
First published in The Bulletin, 29 December 1948
