Crippled Crop

by George Bailin (April 2015)

What have you planted

that you should reap

a swelling harvest, 

that steep hills of wheat 

should rise around you?

 

oh, you shrink

back, back… you flee

the sight of bare

fields, you sink

despairing, crying

how scant the dry

shoots!

 

how shall the dazed bee

find a single yellow flower 

among those wrecked roots?

 

ah, frail farmer,

what wan sowing

accounts 

for this parched hour?

how shall nectar ooze

from this arid ground?

 

it is justice, 

justice pounding

its strong fist.

astounded, the bleached horizon. 

this dear, dearest earth,

is blistered.

o, you,

you held it cheap.

 

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