Agriculture Poem by Boudhayan Mukherjee

I felt silence inside me
fanned to a glowing fire
At Somaipur, faraway
from local town post,
The silence of fallow land
burrowed by rodents.
Kanu Garai could'nt dig
a shallow pump
A mono cropper
he would never overcome
His grief.

I felt silence of poverty
the muted reversal of dreams
The panicles of wheat blighted;
will potato bumper on this loamy soil?
Will it ignite a glowing fire
Kanu Garai wonders.

We have questions unresolved
about acres of land left barren
About floods and droughts man made
about our future draped in darkness.

Even if we propagate here, dance
with our wives in ghagre, children will
Roam around field-bunds unfed
there'll finally be no jobs
To do with our hands.