SONS OF THE SOIL (Week 14 Theme: Farmer)

They till the soil to fill our plates of rice,

Don’t look down on them, peasant families are all very nice.

Whether the harvest season will yield crop – it is uncertain as game of dice

Sometimes the yield of the field is eaten away by locusts or by mice.

The Potato Eaters by Vincent Van Gogh was also about a peasant family,

These people, the poorest of the poor, sat around a table quite happily.

Farmers plough the land to ensure that our bellies are full and we belch lazily,

Peasants and Mother Nature are so close to each other that they share a relation uncannily.

I still remember my first painting was a farmer reaping harvests –

A farmer’s association with greenery reminds me of my love for forests

A peasant family represents in microcosm, nature’s basket in the smallest –

Children of farmers need not grow up to be farmers, they’re the cutest.

Farmers are our fathers; they fill our bellies,

Seasonal vagaries induce them to make production which varies –

Vast, open lands give them birth and to their end, do their soul doth carries

They are sons of the soil; they belong there and doth each marries.