Читать книгу This Carting Life - Rustum Kozain - Страница 5

February harvest: Boland

1. The grape picker

Her calves hard as stumps of vine

an old woman heaves a basket

like a hump to her back and hacks

a pearl of phlegm from her throat.

Daybreak. She yearns to taste

that warm and sweet sulphuric wine

and dreams of empty rows of vine:

one tot for each tenth load of grapes.

But the rows hang full and wait.

One foot in front of another

she stoops, bends knees and waist.

Soon, her brown and stick-gnarled arms

alternate to pluck and toss

pluck and toss fat grapes

from vine to back-borne basket:

her limbs akimbo, like broken swastikas,

like vine barbing the still, persistent land.

2. Wine’s estate

The early sun bloats the long drop to such glut

odours clamour over the bluebottles’ buzz.

In the distance, a slit-eyed cock tries to crow

chokes on a crackling phrase, heaves for air.

At ten, the sun slows, hangs just there

like God’s diamond brooch to robes thinned by wear.

Under her fifth basket of grapes, the woman

bends so low over shrivelling leaf

she hears her sweat seep into the ground.

Thirsty, she lifts some grapes to her mouth

and feels them burst like a flush of blood

against her palate

her blood that’s fed the sand.