Fallow is when the fields take a rest

Dr Abe V Rotor

Harvest time is prelude to fallowing, which coincides
with the peak of summer when the fields take a rest.
Painting in acrylic AVR

When I was a boy I would walk the fields when harvest was over
and watch the maya glean on the leftovers like the old women
in the paintings of Millet and Brueggel which inspired Amorsolo
to paint the ricefields with the richness of Rembrandt's colors.

I would roll up the straw mulch and catch the aestivating frogs,
now brown instead of green for they mimicked their surrounding:
geometic deep cracks where the soil is fertile and rich in humus
surprising them with bare hands, and oh, what a good catch;

and I knew the alug, the depression where the water last receded,
harboring dalag encrust in its muddy deep ready to spring to life
with the crayfish, kuhol and suso', and catfish likewise ensconced,
waiting for the first rain in May or April if monsoon comes early;

I would doze on the back of my pet carabao lazily browsing around,
its body as lean as the cattle and goats and fowls on the range;
the air became cooler each day, the dragonflies hovered in hordes,
thunder came closer, winds hissed, the sky broke into downpour;

The fields would then wake up from slumber and summer is over;
fallow is time Nature sleeps, then wakes up to renew life for us all. ~

Sunshine on Raindrops, AV Rotor, Megabooks 2000