The Dozinki Poem by John a'Beckett

The dairy cows have snapped their chains
and wandered into marsh. Hay’s wet again from yet
another burza burst of unpredicted rain. The cat’s
knocked the kompot onto Kasia’s Sunday Best
and someone’s flung the folk-songs in the fire.

But as the sun that’s scissoring the grey would say, let’s
trundle arm-in-arm together to the harvest fair.

True, there’s a drunkard on the road who’ll hold us up
from getting to the forest town, deep as he will be
in his Vodka-saturated sleep. The harvesting combine
is in the road, rolled as it is in mud, and let’s admit
the band-stand has collapsed into the mire

Still, though the bull has broken through the fence
as Kasia has her long affair with Jackym off- there’s
much to bear but we’ll get there and trundle
arm-in-arm together to the harvest fair.