Stone harvest

Scots chose this place, its stone-filled glacial till
To live, this cruel Glengarry, here where scabs
Would chew potatoes into rotten lumps
And grazing past the rocks that boiled up
Every spring was cattle’s horse’s human’s lot.
So here on this hard land where winter’s
Winds tear along the river, spill over rows of hills
Like tides to twitch on icy fields through
Orange and purple sunsets frozen hard as
Hearts of stones until in spring the harvest
Was the rocks, boulders that boiled up
With frost and lay atop the melting furrows
Confounding crows, returning duck and geese
Like prizes good only for fences hauled by fists
And fingers, hands, levers, steel and wood,
Horses, harness, wagon, sledge and boot
Settled there for ages, legacy of fields
Close cropped by cattle, stumbled over by
Children, gradually overgrown by time
Yet all that stays like monuments to
Subterranean seeds.