I Fear The Farm Country Poem by Sakutaro Hagiwara

I fear the farm country,
I fear the farm country's unmanned rice-paddies,
Where the quaking rice stalks grow row by row.
I fear the destitute denizens of these dark homes,
Crawling out in hordes.
When I sit on the levee dividing the paddies,
The weight of tsunami-like dirt piles gets me down.
The fetid reek of the topsoil makes my skin grow dark.
The desolate winter scene makes living here hard.

Out in the country, the very air we breathe feels goomy, weighty.
The country is abrasive, coarse to the touch.
Sometimes when I think of the country,
I'm tormented by the stench of the rough-hided beasts.
I fear the country.
The country is a feverish, black nightmare.