Farmer

Sometimes I want to become a farmer.
Not because my ancestors were farmers
And I’m supposed to have it in my blood,
Nor is it because I’ve lived on a farm
And the experience inspired me.

I don’t want to be the sort of farmer
That Heaney talks about in his poems,
A farmer that is at one with the land
And farms not as their job but as their life.

I want to be a farmer like Burroughs.
I would wait out my boredom on my farm
Keep busy with hard work and earn money
And when I leave I would leave my boredom
Lying battered in the soil behind me
With a snapped shovel bloody beside it.