The world's refugee crisis, 100 million refugees and counting, my own community's homeless encampments and struggling migrant farmworkers led me to write this poem.
We Call It Home
Hazy sunlight over golden fields
an autumn's day, a path, a bird,
lovers holding hands, a road that leads
into the shade, a woodland glade,
a quiet stream,
it flows along where some yet live in
roadside shacks where mothers dream.
A dress, a garden, hands that toil
in dampened soil, like
callings from above,
men bend and stoop and, gazing far
beyond the verdant field, the plowman's blade,
to hills where clefts in folds of earth, eyes
see not, but for a time they yearn.
Where lies the dove that seeks its grain upon the earth?
Its wings, its gift, its way, to seek those branches high.
Where grows the fruit in hands that carry the
heavy basket load? Children take their mother's
cue to walk the road to where hope leads.
A minor trace upon the brow of
things not said, their hearts, they long
to say, “This is my home.”
They long to say,
“This is my home.”
How evocative this is Corrine…it really touches the soul…
What can be more important than having somewhere to call HOME…
and the lack of this right is so heartbreaking…
‘Children take their Mother’s cue to walk the road to where hope leads.
I found this line so immensely moving….
A fine poem which highlights this immense problem with
Empathy and understanding…
From age 9 to 11, my twin brother and I picked beans in the fields all day in the hot sun for about $3 a day that we saved so that our mother could buy our fall school clothes and school supplies. I liked the experience, but didn't have to do it for a lifetime with meager pay that would not even allow me to own a home or even rent a decent one.
Very soon, the beans were picked by machine and by 17, after picking raspberries one summer, we started to work in a factory for $1.25 an hour. My paycheck that I put in my savings account for college one week was $120!
Farmworkers need to have that kind of upward mobility within their lifetime. Even the ability to buy and run their own farms. Studies have shown that family farms produce better crops and are more productive than factory farms often filled with environmental and employee abuses.
Your poem highlights the plight of farmworkers. I am well knowledgeable about the plight of caregivers. Until we start paying everyone what they are worth instead of what we can get away with, poverty hidden like you reveal in your poem and obvious on city streets, will continue when there is enough wealth to go around for everyone.
A further collection of poems, many from years in the Middle East, but also the California San Francisco and Central Coast areas (Santa Cruz, Carmel, Big Sur, Berkeley, etc.).
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What can be more important than having somewhere to call HOME…
and the lack of this right is so heartbreaking…
‘Children take their Mother’s cue to walk the road to where hope leads.
I found this line so immensely moving….
A fine poem which highlights this immense problem with
Empathy and understanding…
Love, Diana…🍃
Very soon, the beans were picked by machine and by 17, after picking raspberries one summer, we started to work in a factory for $1.25 an hour. My paycheck that I put in my savings account for college one week was $120!
Farmworkers need to have that kind of upward mobility within their lifetime. Even the ability to buy and run their own farms. Studies have shown that family farms produce better crops and are more productive than factory farms often filled with environmental and employee abuses.
Your poem highlights the plight of farmworkers. I am well knowledgeable about the plight of caregivers. Until we start paying everyone what they are worth instead of what we can get away with, poverty hidden like you reveal in your poem and obvious on city streets, will continue when there is enough wealth to go around for everyone.
Ron
Sandie