Julien Dupré. “Haying Time”

And unperceived unfolds the spreading day,
Before the ripened field the reapers stand
In fair array, each by the lass he loves,
To bear the rougher part and mitigate
By nameless gentle offices her toil.
At once they stoop, and swell the lusty sheaves;

— James Thomson, The Seasons, “Autumn”

These lines brought something to mind.

This is what poetry can do.

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It was the fall of 1968. I had a job as an assistant gardener on a 37-acre estate in the town of Brookline, Massachusetts, which is right outside of Boston.

There were three of us assistants – me, Jack, and Jim; plus Peter, the head gardener, who was Dutch. Jack was my age. Jim was an elderly Irish guy still employed. On warm days he wore a floppy straw hat.

The fall was splendid, as only New England falls can be.

To my surprise, one morning we were told we would spend the day haying.

You have big wooden hay rakes. The sun has dried the tall blades of grass. You rake and the dried shoots (the hay) stick in clumps to the rake.

One of us workers was driving a flatbed truck. You throw the hay over the side onto the back of the truck. You have to shake some of it off and keep shaking until the hay is all dislodged.

The truck drove to a shed, backed up, and the hay was dumped into a hayloft by raising the back of the truck.

It was pleasurable work in the warm sun. And now I knew what haying entailed.

Golden memories. The poem brought them to mind today.

(Well, maybe haying and reaping aren’t quite the same thing, but they’re close enough.)

— posted by Roger W. Smith

  April 2023