Inaka

Knee-deep in water
among the mountains
bend and rise
planting the rice seedlings
bend and rise
just like 500 years ago
under the same mountains
living in the same village
bend and rise.
My husband, she says,
doesn't write so well
but he is honest and strong
and our second son
surprised us all.
With a show of metal teeth,
the proud mother,
sun-darkened, shaded
under a conical coolie hat,
smiles like a young girl.
Her second son, she tells me,
goes to college in Tokyo.

----------------------

*Inaka (田舎) - out in the country, anathema to most urban cool young Japanese because that is exactly where their families came from ...