"The Harvesters"

"The Harvesters" May 2010

Peter Brugel, tell me,

The women sitting under the pear tree? Is it a picnic?

I count twelve of them. Are they wives and children?

Seven others hard at work in the fields.

Bright sunny day, the wheat a shining gold.

I want to be with the picnickers

Eating dark bread, cheese, ham cheese..

This scene so attracts me? Hmmm why?

Not a machine in sight. Just a U curved sickle.

A hand tool for cutting wheat.

A snoring peasant, codpiece up tight,

Fast asleep under the pear tree

His lullaby? Birdsongs.

I first met Peiter Brugel

At a museum holding Papas hand,

“Here’s an important artist.

A painter of people in their everyday lives.”

Harvesting wheat and a picnic lunch,

That’s an everyday good life”

The Harvesters in the bright yellow wheat field

Yet it must be lunchtime. Peasants

Have gathered in the mid-ay sun?

Under the shade of an old pear tre

John Deere of Peoria saw the Harvestors,

His roaring gaseous tractor.

Did the work of the whole Brugel family.

Goodbye, Harvesters, Goodbye picnic.

Goodbye to the sheaves.

Goodbye to the birdsongs.

Peoria, John Deere did it all,

In one big thunderous roar.

Go, put that on your canvas.