Hugging the mountain slope
Hand-made houses cling to time,
Hand-worked soil and rice paddies
Stop the tick of the clock
Farmers’ worn hands weave into the land,
Generations of rice and people bloom and fall,
Their lives and deaths add to the earth’s humus.
The mountains’ power cannot be expressed
Their beauty changes with the rise and fall of the sun,
They silhouette against the soft glow of the night moon,
The flow of colors on the mountain sides mark the day
Making each movement a moment of joy.
Mist rises from moist fields with the sun,
The scent of tilled soil fills me with peace,
A brook tumbles over rocks
and beckons me to stay and work the land
And eat what it allows me to harvest.
Walking through a glen of pines
I pause to listen to the breeze,
The creaking limbs moan in eerie tones,
Every footstep crunches on the dry dirt road,
I feel connected to the Earth:
I, too, am part of creation,
And the life of the hamlet.
My life is braided into theirs.