(Grant from National Endowment for the Arts; and The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.)
My poem was published in three different volumes.
Note: This poem is about neglected PEOPLE, attending to their care and needs, and experiencing revitalization.
Neglect
The fields were left unshorn, the house was bleak and worn.
The barn forgot its life and warmth and litters that were born.
The apples grew and fell, became a rotting smell.
The rust attacked the tools and wheels which knew their jobs so well.
With helping hands they came, to sow and tend and reap.
To save the farm from certain death, to wake it from its sleep.
And now petunias grow, along the chicken wire,
The piglets root and squeal with joy, in moss and grass and mire.
The sight of birds and bees, of cows and streams and trees,
Should soften all the hardest souls and bring them to their knees.
How many farms lay waste?
How many die each day?
Who will bring them back to life?
Hurry! Don’t delay!
The barn forgot its life and warmth and litters that were born.
The apples grew and fell, became a rotting smell.
The rust attacked the tools and wheels which knew their jobs so well.
With helping hands they came, to sow and tend and reap.
To save the farm from certain death, to wake it from its sleep.
And now petunias grow, along the chicken wire,
The piglets root and squeal with joy, in moss and grass and mire.
The sight of birds and bees, of cows and streams and trees,
Should soften all the hardest souls and bring them to their knees.
How many farms lay waste?
How many die each day?
Who will bring them back to life?
Hurry! Don’t delay!
This is MY Country
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Very poignant!
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