I CAN UNDERSTAND

I can understand

Mao putting the academics

Into the fields

Yes it's HARD HARD

Working on the land

As a peasant hands

Chapped back bent

Most of the day

I'm a peasant

Working the land

Growing the food

For the family

And it's different

If you came from the town

If you came coz of signs

If you came for the vibes

If you came from a dream

Okay the vision fades

Sex sews em together

Sex sets em apart

Whilst territorial altercations

Grip you in the guts

But if you stay

And plough

Sow and harrow

Reap and thrash

Flail and winnow

Grind and bake

If you go through

Season after season

Stuck in the future

Not seeking visitations

But feeling the need

For hard work and patience

It makes you weep

To see them from the city

Walk like daleks

on your land

And ask you how MANY

Acres are you farming?

They don't know what

An acre is!

You've got to work one

With yer mits

To get a fair idea.

That's dialectical

Materialism. But

There's bins of these

Unbalanced yappers

Who never find out

Anything direct

Who never feel

Real!

My aim is the whole

Man. Not only mud

And grind, but mind

Alive, the good life, highs

Deep communion love

Yes I accept it's hard

Coz it's HARD

Working virgin land.......

You've got to try it

To know the rocks

Too big for me

To carry. Got

To roll em off

And every spring there's more but

They seem to break up

Easier roots

Moving through the cracks

Force the rock

To split

Then there's deer

At the oats.

I tried scaring them off

With a gas gun.........

But as the rising sun

Lit my Van Gogh field

You could just see them.......

A flicker of fawn

Quietly munching

Amidst the ripening corn.

Bastards! Bastards!

Me flipped did scream

At dusk and dawn.

"Charlie," I pleaded

"Shoot the lot!" And when

I ate one I wished

He'd got ten.

"Don't you talk to them?"

Asked Hippy David, just arrived

From London. Very "holy".

No!" I said. He went

Off to talk to them, not returning

Till next morning

Terrified

From a night barefoot

Screaming on the granite

Mountain  "The mountain

Took my shoes! Didn't see

ANY deer! Thought instead

I'd die! DIE! I shouted

All night for help

Repeating repeating

All the names of God."

This spring it's wheat

Which means highering the fence

To at least eight feet

Which means getting dead pine

From Commission forest

Slicing with circlar saw

Then onto cart and with pony

Over marsh to the deer

Loved vulnerable field

And now it's spring

I can't finish sowing

The wheat

Coz it's snowing