The Village Crops

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

His mother almost saw the seaweed brown

In irises.  Perhaps his father could

Foresee his ocean travels and the gown

Of graduation, but that likelihood

Was limited by village attitude.

The boy would blast away on jets and sail

Away on ships, but brown boy gratitude

Is focused on his mother; hazel’s male

Remembers her brown slaving in the fields,

Self-sacrifice for daughters and this son,

Self-abnegation and long love it yields

Beneath the crush of India’s harsh sun.

  The boy grew up in poverty but knows

    What mother’s loving means and how it grows.

©  Phillip Whidden