Sower with Setting Sun, by Ian Fletcher

Sower with Setting Sun, by Vincent van Gogh (Netherlands), 1888.

Sower with Setting Sun

He strides across the freshly ploughed and harrowed land
scattering into its furrows the seeds from his sack
where they will germinate in this fallow and fertile soil
such honest toil sustaining him and his kith and kin.
Behind him stands a vast field of wheat the fruit
of past labours stretching like a yellow sea to the horizon
then seeming to merge into the rays of the setting sun
which radiate from the earth into the heavens above.
Paying no heed to the blackbirds following him as he goes
he allows them their share of the seeds that he sows
for here is God’s plenty and the cup of nature overflows.
This humble man has long since returned to the earth
from whence he came and these ancient fields
will now be sown and harvested by machines
consigning him and his ilk to the land of our dreams.
Yet in van Gogh’s painting the sower sows eternally on
reminding us of a simpler world that has forever gone.

Ian Fletcher

Born and raised in Cardiff, Wales, Ian has an MA in English from Oxford University. He lives in Taiwan with his wife, two daughters and cat. He teaches English in a high school. He has had poems and short stories published in The Ekphrastic Review, 1947 A Literary Journal, Dead Snakes, Schlock! Webzine, Short-story.me, Anotherealm, Under the Bed, A Story In 100 Words, Poems and Poetry, Friday Flash Fiction, and in various anthologies.