Seeds of Spring

The seeds of Spring by patience watered

Will yield a harvest. Time to gather fruit.

The black watermelon seeds burst open,

The sun colored carrots are firm.

The night-kissed loam is studded with produce

In fields showered by farmers’ prayers,

Blessed by the calloused workman’s fingers,

Baked by the long days of summer.

The earthy taste of melons and the onion’s tears

Grace tables while boys in country groves get pasty

And ears of corn grow their yellow to brown beard

Tenderly plucked by wives with but little time

To wait for men whose knives at the vine

Glisten in the sun and their hearty laughter

Will grow mellow and sonorous by supper tables.

There is no toil but what brings blessing,

No scraped hands but those kissed by children

Who savor peach meat and learn numbers with beans,

Future graduates in laborer’s dreams I well know,

As well as a hat woven from palm branches can tell.

Their faces are redder than ripe tomatoes,

Their handshake firmer than the pears.

I’ve seen the young couples’ innocence wither

In despair over whether the rains will come.

I’ve seen smoke climb moon beams in the huts,

Prayed by fires and ashed my face.

Yet aching bodies scream to heaven

That the granary be full by winter days.

Vicente Reyes

Spring, 1996