First Fruits

                First Fruits

From your plot of land;

You have cleared the tangle of thorns;

By callused open-aired hand

You gave shape again to Jack Dave’s.

Now threads of sunlight freshen green

The seaweed soul of your soil;

The sea-sucking southerlies stream

Water on planted seeds.

Veterans of winter’s icy rasp,

The supple saplings are at slender ease;

The smell of vegetables is a granted wish

On the warm honeysuckled breeze.

In the field where rushes grew,

The donkeys heft their hooves up;

You don’t mind the birds that queue

On the soot-flecked chimney;

You have picked the first fruits;

On the apron of Itzack Rabin Square,

You wash soil from the stem and roots

Of what you will eat today.

In long-armed Bantry Bay a dream

Gleams on a dolphin’s back;

It is life not just first fruits you redeem;

And on your story Moses smiles.