James May

Testimonial
Harold Vinal

For those who gave their strength and hope to the earth,
For the plough-driver and the seed-sower, this song
In memory of their greatness and their honour.

For those with calloused hands and bent backs
Who drove horses in the July sun,
For the stackers of hay on hot afternoons,
Who knew autumn could be ominous and the heat a scourge.

For those who walked the cornfields and heard song ripple out of the grass like a scythe,
Who lay on the slopes and watched twilight make love to the land.

For those that went forth at morning with a handful of seeds
And came back at evening, their bodies fragrant with loam from the foothills,
This 'obituary', in memory of their fortitude and their honour.

The earth was a saga they told with their hands,
And they consoled their minds with dreams
Under the eaves of winter with the snow banked at the doors
And the owl's cry in their ears.

They chewed spring in their mouths and their food was the wind,
They twisted the ropes of dead corn in their hands
And gave us bread out of the vast green oven of the land.

The grass will write their names, though their graves are forgotten,
The wind will sing their praise forever,
The myrtle will bloom where they sleep.