Rice paddy wakes up ready to be planted.
Where are those lazy farmers?
Snicker laughs. Nothing lazy about them.
They are the most cheerful workers she knows
She feels swampy today, colder than usual
The plow is heading her way,
She can see it a bit past the tiered fields
Golden streams snaking through tall verdant grasses
She waves, but pointed bamboo hat man does not see
He is getting older, slower,
He does not bend as long over her as he used to
Gets more angry about the menacing rats too
Losing his grip in some ways
She learned that her sake is a hit in the west
No surprise to her.
Japan, Hanoi and Vietnam love it, don’t they?
She has heard old coolie brag about her rice, more than any other paddy.
Rice Paddy watches him turn the plow over to his son
Son is lazy. Should be getting plow himself. Spends too much time over nothing.
How will she fare when Old Man Farmer is no longer of this world?
She bows to him as he enters her waters, knowing she will miss him terribly.
Categories:
rice paddy, 10th grade, 11th grade,
Form: Personification
Rice paddy wakes up ready to be planted.
Where are those lazy farmers?
Snicker laughs. Nothing lazy about them.
They are the most cheerful workers she knows
She feels swampy today, colder than usual
The plow is heading her way,
She can see it a bit past the tiered fields
Golden streams snaking through tall verdant grasses
She waves, but pointed bamboo hat man does not see
He is getting older, slower,
He does not bend as long over her as he used to
Gets more angry about the menacing rats too
Losing his grip in some ways
She learned that her sake is a hit in the west
No surprise to her.
Japan, Hanoi and Vietnam love it, don’t they?
She has heard old coolie brag about her rice, more than any other paddy.
Rice Paddy watches him turn the plow over to his son
Son is lazy. Should be getting plow himself.
Spends too much time over nothing.
How will she fare when Old Man Farmer is no longer of this world?
She bows to him as he enters her waters, knowing she will miss him terribly.
Categories:
rice paddy, environment, farm, garden,
Form: Personification
Raindrop falls from God's eye and runs off the cheek of the child
cowering behind a dumpster for warmth
It stings the face of the roofer struggling to finish the job
to buy shoes for his children
The villager raises his hand to raindrop as it fills his rice paddy
Raindrop cleans the air and reminds us of new beginnings
Raindrop gives its life force to the raging oceans, seas, rivers
and the mighty rainforests
Raindrop races to crash out of the riverbank
on its course of destruction
He cools the early evening after a long hot day
He travels on an iceberg and lives in the depths of the Earth
He decides to show his crystals to happy children
on a white Christmas morning
He falls on summer night and rises to a foggy sunrise
Raindrop gives the farmer a huge smile as it falls to do it's work
Raindrop reminds us God is good as it joins the rainbow
on its journey back to Heaven
For raindrop is eternal and is with us today, gone tomorrow and will surely return someday
Raindrop Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Craig Cornish
11/15/18
Categories:
rice paddy, rain, rainbow,
Form: Free verse
HARD JUMP
The bird dropped in the darkness
the ground somewhere below,
slowing its motion to hover,
a sudden cross fire erupts.
It was dark zero one thirty hours
in a routine night insertion;
that day there had been a fight
small hostile groups were roaming.
The pilot had to protect his Huey
and we were ordered to unass,
the sky and ground a black well,
the distance jumped unknown.
I hit hard in a dry rice paddy;
lightning pain from my ankles
surging up through my back
announced that I was hurt.
My legs were numb and useless
my back flared pain sharply;
orders and plans now useless
we could only go to ground.
Categories:
rice paddy, anxiety, dark, education, military,
Form: Free verse
That homeless guy out on the corner,
Carrying a sign that says he’s hungry;
Maybe he’s just a drunk or a ‘stoner’,
But he might be that one-out-of-three.
That one-out-of-three is a veteran,
Who in uniform served his country.
There’s a good chance he has an addiction,
Or is still suffering from PTSD.
One out of three of those ones-out-of-three
Fought in one of America’s wars.
Did he scream on a beach in Normandy,
Or did he at Inchon go ashore.
Did he hunt Charlie in a rice paddy?
Was he in the Balkans, or lost in the sand?
One out of three of those ones-out-of-three,
Were the heroes who once took a stand.
If you can spare a few dollars, then feed them.
If not, at least hear what they say.
Their country may no longer need them,
But they don’t deserve to be thrown away.
They might not have all bled in battle,
But each one came home a casualty.
With your help, they may someday be able
To leave the ranks of the one-out-of-three.
Categories:
rice paddy, courage, loss, poverty, soldier,
Form: Quatrain
The Cavity
I know of a man, who was digging in his field, he had seen
China on a map and wanted to go there, and by his estimate
China was just under his feet. It I was a cumbersome job and
the hole was deep almost hundred feet... and then its wall
collapsed- in a round hole there is only one wall- he was never
seen again. For many years when someone died in the village
the digger came, from it was said that so and so had gone to
China. But wait the story of hopeless travail didn´t stop there.
There is legend in Manchuria of a strange man who suddenly
appeared in a paddy field pointing to the ground looking for
a lost hole, said he wanted to go home which was impossible.
Digging a hole for yourself is not a smart thing to do, because
when you leave the safety of what you once knew there is no
telling what you might find, a gold mine or a rice paddy.
Categories:
rice paddy, humor,
Form: Sonnet
Was It Worth It?
Where did it go?
I knew so many that had the passion
Protests against government abuse
Refusing to live without questions
Why do men have to die in a war to conquer others?
Guns, bullets and death for an extra acre of land
All coming from the desire of one man
A man who plays God
Sending the young to fight for him
Dying for him in fields a half a world away
Did he have a choice whether to fight or not?
Why did the government send him that piece of paper?
Who decided that he was the one to go?
Did he even know that Vietnam was a country?
He left right after school
Never able to find out about life or love
Now, his blood stains a small patch of land
Worthless land on the edge of a rice paddy
What did the man in Washington gain from his death?
Did he even know the young man died?
He doesn’t care
He got his small piece of land
The five inches where the boy died
Was it worth it?
Was it worth a young man losing his life?
Ask the man in Washington
Ask the government the people elected
Ask the family who buried their son on a Tuesday
Everyone should ask of every young man killed to fight a war
Was it worth it?
Categories:
rice paddy, death, war,
Form: Free verse
Rounds are fired,
The young soldier falls,
Young no more,
Forward into a rice paddy,
The silence is eerie
Ten thousand miles away,
His mother senses,
A long, long wait for her,
Her tears will make an ocean,
His girlfriend cries,
From unknown emotion,
Twenty years from now,
Will anyone remember him?
Why he was there,
Where is he now?
Elsewhere a weathered grave marker,
Strips the dead of their identity,
Doesn't seem to matter,
No one will come to see
Billions die such pointless deaths
In hopes they've made a difference
And done a duty,
So ill defined,
To drift into the past,
Away from time...
Away from reasons,
They will never understand,
Nor many of us,
In this great land.
Categories:
rice paddy, angst, death, family, loss,
Form: Dramatic Monologue