Landless

Refugees are neither seen nor heard but they are everywhere. — Arthur C. Helton

Artwork by Toni Verkruysse

His family,
ejected from their land,
they were told
the land now belonged to the State.

More accurately
it belonged to a large corporate farm
with expertise to produce three times greater harvest
than he and his ancestors ever could
with their primitive hoes.

Higher productivity benefits
the greater good
and
indirectly
his family too.

Now
several decades later
living in a foreign country
two thousand miles away from the land
he still remembers the smell of the soil.

The soil,
which now carries paved roads, luxury condos, timeshares, but no crops,
still remembers their primitive hoes.

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A sketch of this poem was published in Friday Flash Fiction on April 26, 2024.