Summary

In the first stanza, the speaker describes the setting as a landscape still in the process of coming together. The hills darken as oxen sleep in their blue yokes. Workers and animals have already labored to pick the fields clean. Bundles of grain stalks lie lengthwise, tied together after reaping. They are piled on the side of the road next to cinquefoil plants. A toothed moon rises over the scene.

In the second stanza, the speaker characterizes the situation as "the barrenness / of harvest or pestilence" (8-9). A woman (described as "the wife") leans out her window and holds out gold seeds like a payment. She calls forth the presence of a "little one" (15). In the final one-line stanza, the soul of a nearby tree creeps out of its body and moves toward the woman.

Analysis

In her poem “All Hallows,” Louise Glück...