The Harvest That Never Came

A sudden frost destroys the ripening rye, shattering a family's hope and marking the first fracture in an unyielding faith in honest labor. LYRICS Father's hands upon the plow, my small hands on his own The furrows run like prayers across the breathing, patient stone Rye is green and rising, he says we'll bake by autumn's end The smoke curls from our chimney, and the dusk is warm as bread But the stars are far too bright tonight And the wind has stopped its song He looks up at the sky, and says nothing He knows that something's wrong The harvest never came! Frost has taken all we sowed! The harvest never came! Nothing grows from our own blood! Black the field and bare the sky Still we ask and none reply! Dawn breaks pale across the rye, and every stalk is dead Gray and bowed like mourners, and the earth is hard as lead Father kneels among them, breaks one stalk between his thumbs And I watch my father's shoulders as the silence settles in He taught me every season He taught me every seed He never taught me what to do When the ground has nothing left to feed The harvest never came! Frost has taken all we sowed! The harvest never came! Nothing grows from our own blood! Black the field and bare the sky Still we ask and none reply! Father walks back to the house He does not turn his head We will manage, he says But he does not look at me