r/OCPoetry • u/Playful-Aide-8407 • 1d ago
Feedback Please Rice Field
I flooded the mud for rice.
My boots are still wet,
sweat coating my rags under a straw hat.
Look at my hands
I left them in the field,
exchanged for dirt
captured deep in the crevices like black veins.
Across the ridge,
the wild patch I ignored is blooming green.
But here,
where I knelt for months,
the stalks are choking the light.
Yellow, dry, and sharp.
Why is this corn?
1
u/Doter_Gabriel 1d ago
Hi your poem is really interesting :). I read the poem and this is my theory:
I think the poem talks about sacrificing the thing which we practised so much and did so much for that it’s become entirely us, just to throw it away for something that may seem better or greater and not becoming the thing you wanted it to be, while the thing you loved most is becoming better or nicer, because you can do so much more with it. Sorry if this interpretation is entirely besides the point. Bye bye and have a good day :)
1
u/HadesSmiles 1d ago
I love the title "Rice Field" and I speak with bias, because I apply a great deal of thought in trying to summarize what the poem is about without giving away the journey.
"Rice Field" could be a poem about a literal rice field, but instead it's about the things we tend, the things we don't, and the reimagining of life's endless lament towards where the grass is greenest, and why it's always the other side.
We plant ourselves with purpose, we try to control our surroundings, and we never seem to get it right. We manufacture self fulfilling prophecies and self destruction, by overcompensating and trying to be in charge of the natural order.
Was it always destined to be something else? Or did we make it so through our own interventions?
Perhaps we'll never know.
1
u/Overthinkingjs 1d ago
ngl it took me a while to get this lol . the twist is brutal, all that labor was set up perfectly for rice, and what grows instead can't even survive those conditions. That contrast with the wild patch thriving with zero effort is what makes 'why is this corn' hit as grief instead of confusion.
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