Busy seasons

In July, Mars descends and we struggle into the barren fields. Our clothes have worn thin. We take up hoes and shiver in the cold wind. Women carry baskets on narrow paths to gather tender mulberry leaves. The young women are afraid of being noticed and given to nobles far away. Each month, another chore. Men trim high branches of the mulberries and hunt fox and boar. The furs are for a coat for the young lord. We give large boars to the lord but we might keep the small ones. Women gather herbs for medicine and dyes; they begin to spin and weave. They dye yellow, black, and red. Robes are for the noblemen, but not for the women’s families. Orioles, shrikes, cicadas, grasshoppers, and crickets keep the seasons just like us. After our harvest, grass withers. Rats and crickets invade our huts. By day we cut thatch for roofing; by night we weave ropes at the palace. We harvest and thresh grains; we pick grapes, beans, and mallow; we build storerooms for the harvest. There’s a time to gather firewood and a time to chisel ice. If we’re not patching our roofs, we’re sowing fields and planting. We make wine with our rice and with it we wish for long lives.