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They stood and scanned the field before them,
The full ripe waving expanse
And in a line along the low ditch
Steadied their stance, steadying breath,
Full of the memory of the cycle-
The blue lakes of flax blossom
Appearing out of the noon terrain,
And after the pulling, the rush bands
Binding the beets, gathering into stooks
In ordered lines as a stone arrangement,
And the carrying to the flax-hole drowning
Held down with sod and stone, and stench
Of rot fill the land day and night
Until, waist deep in thick dark water,
The throwing out, beet after heavy beet
Bourne away across the acres
To lye as bodies on a battlefield,
There, into their abandonment
Under the drying sun, as the scutch-mill
Waits, ready for the final journey,
And the great water-driven wheel
Turn its noisy eager cogs and laths
As out of the mist of the shough dust,
Out of the fractured broken remains
A pure risen linen form appears.
The flax pullers stand to attention
Ready in a line along the bottom ditch,
Steady of stance, steady of breath,
And full of the memory of the cycle
Tear into the field with their bare hands.
By Peter Makem
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