and so with the leaf the olive falleth too

Never mind the spirituality, harvesting olives is hard unremitting graft. Nets to be spread, ladders to be climbed, olives to be raked out from entangling slips and acrostic skeins, to be corralled and taken up in heavy boxes to be hefted up or down terraces and loaded and hauled to mills or in ancient times ground to pulp with stones, the floating oil separated by hands softer than the southern breeze.

And yet and yet - there is something magical about the taut round fruits hanging in lines, taught by the pruner’s art to form where picking is easy and energy focussed; the slick what-these-horny-hands-of-mine-so-smooth from the blushing oil; the bounty after summer drought and the succession of youngsters growing to full proud, seemingly effortless production.

For this thrill and the spicy oil that with bread and salt is but enough for gods to eat we endure the tangle, the sharp leaves, the out-of-focus eyes mired in the briar of galling growth and after raking all out we prune for the next season ever thinking ahead how this miracle can be preserved and lastly pull the thicket of litter away to burn in thick, hanging oily smoke.