Make hay while the sun shines. There is an older wisdom in this proverb, a local and particular meaning that goes something like this: "Make sure that your actions are timely in relation to the natural forces, such as the season and the weather, upon which your actions depend in order for their meaning to be complete." The proverb is not primarily about the efficacy of timely action but about the limits within which human action must occur in order to be part of a meaningful whole. Every farmer knows that he may only cut the grass, in good time; then, like Frost's mower, he must leave "the hay to make."
The difference between these two readings of the proverb is reflected in the history of haymaking itself: the technology of haymaking has evolved from the scythe and pitchfork to a power-driven operation in which "in some cases the farmer never touch[es] the hay until it [is] time to feed it out," but still today there comes an interval when the machines all stop while the cut grass dries in the field. And as he watches the sunlight play over the field, the farmer, who must have good hay to feed the livestock that feeds his family, knows the local and particular meaning of another version of the same proverb: "All flesh is grass." These are, in Isaiah, words of comfort. And in either form, this colloquial wisdom affirms that the human story, in all its efficacy and frailty, is a gift of sunlight.
The farmer does his haying within the ongoing story of soil and rain, wind and sun; he gives it the best form he can, turning the cut grass, raking it into windrows, awaiting the right moment to bind it up. "My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make." You can see how farmer and poet meet in this: relinquishing the good work of their windrows, their well-turned lines, to some fruition, some making, of which their own labor is only a part.
Making Hay, p 2
