Steinbeck's People. Poem by Bryan Sefton

I have eaten your dust
I have weathered your storms
The tribulations of the leaner days
I have entered your mind
I have stood and admired
The dry country
The bleak fields
The empty causeways

I have suffered the helplessness
Of problems without answers
Of trying to make loaves
From a handful of meal
And I shall never be free of the anger
Oh the anger!
That the downtrodden feel

I have laughed with the families
Round the campfires at night
And have spat in the flames
As the stories were told
And have listened to dreams
That asked only enough
Just enough, let the rich keep their gold

I have risen to heights when somebody laughed
Or someone looked down at New life
I have loved with a passion and ached with desire
And have bled with the cut of the knife

And I'll do it again. I'll do it again
I'll travel those roads till I'm dead
Or too arthritic to pick up the books
That beg to be read and re-read