recorded · 1866 · north noemic · field
do not finish the field today. leave a corner for the small birds. do not finish the bread today. leave a heel for tomorrow's hand. do not finish the song today — so somebody else can pick it up.
a walking song. sometimes used at harvest, more often by the slow people who returned home along the road after everyone else. the closing line is the conventional opening of the next song in the sequence; nobody is certain which song that is. anyone may claim to be that somebody.
the chapbook prints six verses; older singers in the forest villages knew nine. the lost verses are believed to be about the hexture of late light on stubble.