Born in difficulty from his torn mother,
pride shines on his toddling steps, while
a faithless father leaves the separating
son to walk in his hard work shoes. No
education. He’ll work for a lazy landowner
or down a mineral mine. Home is piling
on his puny shoulders, the growing weight
of his worries. Forced by circumstances,
they wave him off each day into the
whispering of the dawn, til the darkness
brings him hobbling and hungry, sleepy
but with coins that will buy his siblings
food. Exhausted by his daily grind he
grows into a man wishing his needs
to be met, but he has given all to his
family, who singing his praises lose
him to a wife, but will he too, be sifted
after years of slave labour, craving a
different life or will his body give up
and we find him laid in a fallow field
somewhere: a faithful soul at rest,
old before he was young and used
before
unique.
