Tomorrow is harvest
time, sisters.
Tie your headscarves,
gather your hair
under the soft fabric
and with its thin strands
shelter your braids
from the red-hot apollonian arrows.
Bring garlands of flowers
clinging to your broad waists
and bronzed necks,
and dance on the grape-juice
and drink from the elixir
of the spring.
It's harvest time, sisters,
and the earth is panting
beneath the frenzied blanket
of a pristine sky,
burned by the furor of Phoebus.
Waters run down
now for the last time
through the lush valleys
toward the underground sources,
and the time for grazing
gathers beasts
on the soft carpet-greened
of this land.
There frolic, one against another,
in the warm sweetness
of its cooing,
shy turtledoves
and hooting doves.
Sing and dance,
fill the air with the perfume
of your nude breasts
touching the quiet
surface of waters
that wash away the tiredness
and quench the thirst
and sparkle on the dark boulder.
Don't you see that, in its hidden
manor, the Boreas leads up
its early arrival,
and it spreads over the lands
with restless boldness
and without prior announcement?
Enjoy the deep
fruits of a bearable life
before everything
becomes a wasteland
and no one stone be left
upon another
from the last boundary
to a valley silent as death.
