Ground between the stones of millers,
All those lopped grain heads from tillers,
Oats, maize, millet, corn and wheat,
Make the daily bread we eat
The gristly work of cereal killers.
A miller is an entity that owns and/or operates a mill, especially one that grinds grain into flour or middlings for human and/or animal consumption. The English term tiller, in use at least a 1,000 years, refers to a plant shoot that springs from the root or bottom of the original stalk of grass. That is, tillers are the stems that grow after the initial parent shoot springs from a seed. They allow multiple seed heads to form, increasing the grain yield from a patch of ground. The last line has two examples of wordplay: first, gristly, from grist, grain separated from chaff in preparation for flour or meal production, and grisly, something so gruesome or hideous that it causes horror or disgust. Second, serial, events that occur one after the other (such as the sow and harvest cycle), and cereal, which refers to grasses, such as rye, rice, corn, wheat or barley, that produce grain for food.
