You bought farm equipment for the earth
And went into debt, cleaned for decades
To pay it off. Now you collect cardboard
With scarred hands cut, in the deep heat
Of Japanese summer. In a rich land,
Old and thinking of others, you work
And pull your cart, load and unload,
Cut, flatten and fold, lug and tilt
And smile, Stoic, more philosophical
Than philosophers. You say, amid your pain,
That we will understand if we have children
That a parent cannot take money from them,
That we want our children to have something
Better, and that, to spare them, I say I will
Work till I die, as a hobby. She is thinking
Of dignity even as the cardboard prices
Fall, eight dollars for three days work,
Lugging and hauling beside luxury cars
And we who complain should know some shame
And feed the poor, young and old, and give them
Books and oranges, not drive them with debt
And smother them with insecurity
In wind, sun, rain, sleet and bury
Our stone hearts in a sheet.