Drought and Potatoes '68

[Dennis N O'Brien]

Drought and Potatoes '68

The rhythmic rise and fall of swinging hoe.
Red rising dust that coats his arms and legs,
And all for spuds that without rain won’t grow;
Each plant with wilted leaves to heaven begs
Here on this barren hilltop, where the gaze
In all directions shows the blasted earth,
And from the sky, the scorching searing blaze
Of sun that robs the land of all its worth.

Like tombstones stand the forest giants now dead;
All strangled by the pioneer's ringing axe.
They cast no shade upon the digger’s head
As from the dust, the stunted crop he sacks.
A fence is strung from one dead tree to next;
‘Tis all that says this patch of earth unique.
Around it lie the bones of death perplexed:
The logs and limbs - the past that cannot speak.

He stops to rest, his back to dead wood pressed;
A cooling drink, a humble meal of bread,
Then back he goes to carry on his quest;
At each day’s end the path to home he’ll tread
As on his weary shoulder go the spoils,
Hard wrung from tortured soil that cries for rain,
As day on day for scant reward he toils;
A farmer bred - so used to meager gain.

© Dennis N. O'Brien, 2011 - 2012

[Maureen K Clifford]

Fabulous Dennis - this is IMO really good and swings along nicely with the exception of line 2 verse 2 where I think Pioneer throws it out as you only need a 2 syllable word there. Maybe squatter, or farmer (a bit mundane I know) would work better.
or perhaps something like this might work

Strangled. Ringbarked by pioneers cruel axe or maybe all ringbarked by the pioneers cruel axe

If you read the line out loud it hits you - a bit like that axe you mentioned

I really enjoyed reading this and re reading it and then reading it again. Very very nice

Cheers

Maureen

[Dennis N O'Brien]

Thanks Maureen.
Although pioneer technically has three syllables I (and most people I think)
tend to pronounce it with two, running the first two together as one rather than pi-on-eer.

(there are differences of opinion on this one when it comes to poetry)

[Rimeriter]

"Thank you".

Another fine example of the 'hard' life.
Jim.