Farmers Market Poem by Liilia Talts Morrison

There is a custom tried and true
in villages and towns
where people gather buying goods
and trade with fruits they've grown

Sometimes they meet just once a month
sometimes a day each week
and in some larger settlements
they daily buy and seek

But oft unnoticed and unsung
are plain clad country folk
who sit so patient at their stands
and ne'er a thought evoke

Their hands are rough and faces deep
with wrinkles from much toil
they smell of sweat and never lose
the traces of earth soil

Some days but very few will buy
those beets or butter beans
some days what was quite fresh in morn
is turned to brown from green

A woman old and timeworn sat
face motionless eyes low
and with her gnarled hands tenderly
arranged her fruits in rows

I wondered what her life was like
and why she did not scoff
when what had been with patience grown
would soon be bartered off

She looked with timeless gaze upon
slick bargain seekers' pleas
and those who picked and squeezed each fruit
and those who stole with ease

She wore the same clothes every week
her hair tight in a bun
and every week she'd give a snack
to beggars who had none

We all have lives to live and ways
to spend our earthly days
and even oft unnoticed folk
serve with their patient ways

There is a custom worn and tried
in villages and towns
where people gather to buy goods
and trade with fruits they've grown.