Farmer Giles has cut his rye;
Oh my! Oh my!
Farmer Bates has cut his wheat;
Och, the thieving hares in it!
Farmer Turvey's cut his barley;
Ripe and early, ripe and early.
And where day breaks, rousing not,
Farmer Weary's cut his throat.
crops hide the farmhouse,
but can't conceal distant mountains.
From a hilltop,
farmland stretches
to the horizon:
parceled into rectangles
of brown, beige, and oh
so many shades of green.
It must be the tropics,
for ripe grain to
coexist with verdant
& fallow patches.
So different from the farmland
of my youth
where all the rectangles
were one of two colors -
because everyone had to
pack into the same tight
growing season.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 