If I'd a hoe,
in frozen Maine or Idaho,
I'd go on raking,
shivering and shaking,
all over this land.
I'd go reseeding after weeding
Brother, though your heart is aching,
and the field work is back-breaking,,
We've got to go on raking.
Sister, strengthen us by baking
Singing children, join the chorus.
The seven dwarfs are for us.
Uncle Sam and Santa Claus
cheer us on on without a pause.
Hoe, hoe, hoe!
A new king over Egypt then arose,
Joseph's esteem, no longer of record.
He said, "Behold, Israel has grown large;
They are too numerous to be ignored."
"Come now, we need to deal shrewdly with this,
Lest they increase, with our enemies band,
Before war breaks out, and we are out-manned,
Fight against us and escape from the land."
Therefore, they set taskmasters over them:
Heavy burdens were laid on their shoulders,
Forced to build stores in Pithom and Raamses,
Heavily burdened by the king's soldiers.
Oppression did not have desired effect;
The opposite, in fact, a thing quite odd:
It seems the more the king pressed down on them,
The more they multiplied and spread abroad.
And so all Egypt lived in dread of them;
Their ruthlessness 'gainst Israel increased.
As slaves, they made their lives bitter and hard;
The mortar, brick, and field work never ceased.
The king, in this, did not relinquish, waive,
And thus did Israel become a slave.
----------
(from Exodus 1)
On a cloudy day of July
field work took me to a forested countryside,
the night I had to spend there alone
in an isolated dilapidated bungalow
perched on a desolate plateau top.
At the dead of night came the rains in a torrent
riding on the wings of fierce tropical storm,
pounding waves of gusty winds lashed at window panes
rattling at each stroke of hammering thunder,
the lightning flashed on the quivering foliage,
their moist shadows making myriad of eerie shapes
that slithered on the flooded ground.
At the sudden strike of the thunderbolt
somewhere on the house the flickering lights went out.
In candle light the darkness became even more engulfing
as I heard a sharp knock on the cracked wooden door,
I opened with the shaking hands, find no one there
except the slant arrows of rain piercing the opaque night.
The knocks repeated several times
sending surge of shiver through me in the dark.
The creeping fear kept me wide awake
while I nursed the goosebumps the whole night
with peg on peg of whisky knocking on my head.
December 19, 2018
Contest : Give Me Goosebumps
Sponsored by : Nina Parmenter
moving clouds in the sky
are Angels, transport jets
Angels come in huge numbers
on regular field work tour
examining and taking photos
compiling summarized data
of humans at work on earth
to submit to the Creator
before another workforce is
released through the wombs
of women chosen to conceive
a battalion of human resource
to replace the dead and lazy
I THINK OF YOU
When the sun rises in a slow glowing surge
After the tide recedes from the wet sand’s glimmer,
The breakfast pot on stove begins to simmer
And my field work upon me begins to urge.
The morning trees dance in the meadow and drop their dew;
And cottage chimney warms from new logs burned.
Life unfolds with a new calendar page turned -
And I think of you.