Village boy Impressions

At home the fires are in the fields Licking up twigs, herbs and every blade of grass Leaving a bleak blackness everywhere The fires eat the land at home   They came one day in the heat of noon while men rested Racing through the cornfields And licking through the rice farms, The sorghum, soya, and late millet The fires eat the land at home   How sad a thing to hear the wailing of women And the mournful sighs of grown men, Calling on the gods to save them From this monster of their own making   Analim stands in the middle of his field With his two sons, sweating from the heat His hands on his head, in despair Frantic efforts with neem branches and buckets of water Could not save their burnt crop The women are weeping mournfully, If only tears could quench the blazing fires But alas, the ancestors and the gods are silent  And the flames of hell have broken out Eating up the very soil Sending thick clouds of dark, dark smoke Into a cle