The Pea Pickers 1971 Poem by Yvonne Rautenbach

The Pea Pickers 1971 UK

Ramshackle vaguely khaki covered truck
Screeched to a halt
At the age I was struck
By the need for the thing
which by nature is muck
But I needed it such that I climbed on the truck
Perched on a bar which was barely a seat
We were thrown about
Like the corn being beat
Women and children travellers and sleaze
Bound for the fields and acres of peas.
Ground to a halt in the cool of the day
Hinting it wont take our juices away
Granny in a frock with a face like a plum
Falls from the tailgate
Holding her tum
Men with a bottle leap to the dirt
Kids with a cough and an unclean shirt
Here in lines like an army in green
Tight in rows with a dewdrop sheen
Hiding the bullets of sweet delight
Plucked by the hands of the poor till night.
Midday comes my hands are rusted
clothes are fertiliser dusted
In the ranks a baby screams
Stitched up amongst the endless seams
Granny pulls her knickers down
Has a pea and goes to town
Gathering all her fingers brown
she tells me she should have an op'
'But it all hangs out and just wont stop'
The sacks they fill and biceps too
Lifting sacks to the workers' queue
Up and over the weighing hook
Hung from the truck and he takes a look
'You fall short' he says with a frown
'A little bit more and its half a crown'.
So I'm getting dry its half past two
I am eating peas and feeling blue
baked by the heat yet wet in my pumps
Insects bite and scarlet lumps.
Almost spent I sink to my knees
The clear horizon is all peas.......
Ramshackle vaguely khaki covered truck
Trundling home to the place I was stuck
Age 14 and think I've caught fleas
God help me and grant me peas.................?



2008