Harvest

When the siege and assault
had ceased at Troy, Aeneas
paid me a vis­it. I offered him
some plan­tains and he told me
“veg­eta­bles are what
food eats.” He strode around
my wat­tle and daub, gri­mac­ing.

Pulled on white gloves as if
it were inspec­tion day,
my bil­let a mas­ter work
of jack­leg engi­neer­ing. He
asked if I was still a loy­al Son
of Ili­um

and opened my cup­board.
                       He asked:
“Do you have any whisky?” and
“This place is far too dirty. You
must clean it

if I am to stay the night.”
I want­ed to explain that my home
was made of dirt; that I had
no meat to pro­vide. Yet what
does one say to our sav­ior? My
hand grips the sick­le. There are
crops to get in.

The first clause is tak­en from the first line of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight [Tolkien’s trans­la­tion, nat­u­ral­ly] and the “veg­eta­bles are what food eats” was tak­en from here.