Farmer Poem by J T Jayasingh

With the smell of clay
And taste of sweat, he toils.
When his spade scoops a piece of earth’
It sends shudders through my nerves,
But the next moment I wish
To take a spade and scoop.
He sows, manures, waters,
Removes the weeds out:
All not in the same day
But slowly, intermittently.
He keeps his nerves when
A tiny worm makes designs
On the tender twigs,
When a deadly fly sucks out
The blood of juicy boughs
And alas! One day, when a mad wind
Uprooted his child like plants.
There are lines of pain on his forehead
Hidden by the trickling sweat
But cool is he like a breeze,
Kind is he like a mother cow;
When the first flower blooms
Blissful is he like the God!