Poem for Friday and New Breezy Hill Alpaca

The Farmer
By Margaret E. Sangster

The dawn is here! I climb the hill;
The earth is young and strangely still;
A tender green is showing where
But yesterday my fields were bare....
I climb and, as I climb, I sing;
The dawn is here, and with it—spring!

My oxen stamp the ground, and they
Seem glad, with me, that soon the day
Will bring new work for us to do!
The light above is clear and blue;
And one great cloud that swirls on high,
Seems sent from earth to kiss the sky.

The birds are coming back again,
They know that soon the golden grain
Will wave above this fragrant loam;
The birds, with singing, hasten home;
And I, who watch them, feel their song
Deep in my soul, and nothing wrong,
Or mean or small, can touch my heart....
Down in the vale the smoke-wreaths start,
To softly curl above the trees;
The fingers of a vagrant breeze
Steal tenderly across my hair,
And toil is fled, and want, and care!

The dawn is here! I climb the hill;
My very oxen seem to thrill—
To feel the mystery of day.
The sun creeps out, and far away
From man-made law I worship God,
Who made the light, the cloud, the sod;
I worship smilingly, and sing!
The dawn is here, and with it—spring!

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I spent all of Thursday morning on the phone -- first with my friend Deborah's daughter, with whom I discussed fannish stuff, then with Deborah herself because we hadn't caught up in a while. So that was lots of fun and I got nothing done besides some very minor rearranging/sorting of stuff in my bedroom while I chatted. After lunch I did a bunch of chores and tried to catch up on things, then we took a walk in the unusually cool but gorgeous late afternoon weather where we saw lots of birds. 

We ate Indian food for dinner, then watched the start of the NFL draft before my usual Thursday night fannish chat, which was long and covered a lot of territory. Paul talked to his parents, who feel pretty much recovered, which is great news. On Sunday we got to watch Breezy Hill Farm's alpacas get a new member of the herd -- here you can see the lookout, the other males very curious, and all the ladies very interested before they went back to their rough lives lounging in flowers!