My Land, My Tree

My friend Bhavesh Chhatbar posted this very evocative visual of a proud dry tree standing bravely , all alone, in the midst of the fields.

I saw a face of a farmer in the tree.  (See the visual on the right below).

And then an avalanche of thoughts about GM seeds , farming, the trauma of the farmers, and the thought of a farmer , defiant in the face of all this.

Somehow, a poem happened.

A lifetime of
dealing with an Earth,
slowly withering
under genetic interference.

No greens
for the nesting birds
No greens for
some resting ones,
as he wonders
how this came to pass.

The Raab
done on the fields
after the harvest
inexplicably,
irrevocably burned
and killed all his hopes.

Except
a path,
always unexplainably green
for those
walking in
with compensation
for the land.

And still he stands,
bare,
wrinkled,
slightly bent
but unbowed,
saluting
what was once his Earth.