After Sunrise at Willow Ford Field 🔍

After sunrise, in our family’s millet plot above Willow Ford, I followed my father between damp ridges and pulled weeds with a short iron hoe. My hemp sleeves soon darkened with sweat, while grasshoppers sprang from the leaves and the river flashed through the willows below. Mother brought a coarse earthenware jar of water and cold barley cakes wrapped in leaves; we ate in the narrow shade, speaking about the roof that must be newly thatched before autumn rain. At twenty, I am trusted with more of the work now, though the hoe still raises blisters where yesterday there were none.

At Dusk in the Riverside Work Yard 🔍

At dusk, in the packed-earth work yard beside our riverside house, I sat near the small clay furnace and helped my uncle mend the iron edge of the hoe. I worked the goatskin bellows while charcoal snapped, and orange light trembled over jars, fishing nets, and the timber fence. When the metal had cooled, I traded a measure of dried beans with a neighbor for two bundles of good thatching reed, sealing tomorrow’s work with a shared cup of thin grain brew. By the time the first stars appeared, my hands smelled of soot and reeds, and this strange first day felt a little less borrowed.