Lucky you, you still have the soil

by AshiAkira

 

Lucky you, you still have the soil

The soil to till

To me, now, the smell of soil

Is only in memory

 

Then, I was five or so

My dad was tilling the soil

In a tiny lot adjacent to our house

I loved to watch him swinging his hoe

 

Squatting behind his back, I would follow him jumping like a frog

Whenever I found a chunk of soil he left uncrushed behind him

I would jump on to it, swinging my own tiny hoe

I would crush it with all my force to smooth dirt

 

Cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplants…

Some of the fruits we were seeing in our hearts to grow in the soil

Yes, in those food-scarce days, they were really sweet fruits

Just imagining them ripe on the soil made my heart swell

 

The soil wafted such a sweet smell to my nose

But now, it’s under thick concrete

I remember a row of camellia bushes hedging the lot

But now, it’s been replaced by a concrete wall of a tall building

 

Lots of changes have come about since then

TVs, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, cars, computers, smart phones, etc…

Thanks to industrialists, all these gadgets began to rush in for better living

Yes, living now is much easier, and comfortable, than it was then

 

But now, why is it that I yearn so much for the smell of the soil

I miss the sweetness and the taste of the fruits that grew from our soil

The hothouse-raised vegetables that we buy nowadays

Lack them all

 

Soil and dirt, are they what we were made from in the beginning?

Or have we evolved from something that existed by chance in the seawater?

Whatever the truth may be

I feel we’ve lost what’s vital for life and, I fear, life itself

 

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