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Old
Men
Old men shake their heads
And mutter under their breath…
Old men of the village
Like Incas they stand and stare
Locked in cobbled silence
Their dry stone walls, time withered
And slipping through their gnarled hands
Fingers that once held the reins
Of strong horses, caressed them
And coaxed them home
Along the last painful furrow
Now clutch sticks
And cloudy glasses of rats piss.
Hawking they clear their throats
Spit out memories
Of large trees, bad winters
Mizzling wages,
Sudden death in the dan-dan.
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The Small Farmer
Everything is just as it is,
Fences, ditches, crooked gates
Rime on windows frozen taps,
Feeding troughs full of snow
The cat half asleep in the barn
Dogs barking, the smell of cooking.
There on the small, the poor farms
Live the true farmers and their wives
Scratching the soil and scraping their yards
They live close to the land, feel its grasp
Claw deeper and deeper, solid and stubborn
Their obedience to the earth, firmly embedded
Under their fingernails, ingrained in the skin
Hidden in the teapot.
Boots, stick, dog
Slowly carefully they patrol the fields
Peering into hedgerows, eyes and ears cocked.
Always in the country
People look at you straight on
And then sideways when you're not looking
Just to be sure.
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