The Hardened Land

by Gypsymooncat

What's left after a drought?

A rustic tear has sought relief
As symbol of a hidden grief
It thinly slides down weathered skin
Heralding raging war within

This solid man of stolid past
With strength of steel, endurance, vast
The wall around his swelling heart

Breached and weakened, comes apart

He lets the subtle shift begin
To cast his fortress to the wind
He’s kneeling on his hardened ground
These racking sobs, a sound new-found

He holds two hands towards the sky

Pleading "Lord, please tell me why?
I've worked this land for forty years
By sweat and blood, through doubts and fears

The hand you’ve dealt me is unfair
I’ve empty sheds, the land is bare
My herd are dead or sold for meat
And we are left with naught to eat!"

He looks upon his landscape now
With sorrow etched across his brow
Remains of his one thousand head
Lay starved or shot, in pools of red

The rifle glints beside him, teasing
Yet no bullets left to ease him
Tears still coursing like a flood
Mingle salt with fear and blood

ooo

Homeward bound, he walks upright
The mission done and grief sealed tight
No evidence of how he cried
Belying pain alive inside

His fam’ly needs to feel hope still
In rising dawn, new sun on hills
They may not fully understand

A man so marred
By hardened land

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