The Field Poem by johannes lewinsky

In the land is the man
And as the man breathes
so must the land
for the two are become as one
one breathing into the other
one inextricable knot

tied with entrails and tears
the entrails and tears of years
breathing together and being until
it cannot be said
which is possessed by which

and there's the rub
and there's the occasion
for the spilling of blood

how we cling to the thing
we've been given or taken
like a dog with a bone
rapt and oblivious till threatened
then woe betide any who threaten
to intercept themselves between


Cerberus was not so haughty
As the man who has acquired
By the sweat of his limbs and brow
A strip of land or a cow