The line of og-ogfu winds along the trail,
broken only at the height of noon—
when the safeng is uncovered,
when bowls catch the steam
of watercress broth.
Young men stack stones
on the edge of the slope—
steadying each other on the slide.
Strong: bodies like boulders,
muscles rising and falling
in the slumbering sea
of mud and snails.
Others patch collapsed terraces
or pull out weeds and mimosa.
The women begin the planting—
bare-chested,
they sow the ease of a future harvest.
Humble maiden-breasts
bent to the mud,
yet mocking
the sharp points of the fale and hills,
the flowering of male papayas
when a pair of testicles touches them.
For only in their calloused palms
can the golden tears of rice
be coaxed to fall.
A hawk glides through the sky,
half-blinded by flashes of sun,
by the shimmer of irrigation
in the paddies—
invited
to fold its wings for now,
to perch on a hanging cliff,
and ascend
the sky’s terraced stair.
