Rice Paddies of NYC

By Leo Farley

Three Asian ladies
with bent and twisted frames
youth long gone
gathering bottles and cans
from the streets of NYC,
a scene that transports me back in time to the tangled maze of rivers and vast rice paddies along the delta.

Memory in flight, youth instantly restored. Myself in faded green fatigues. The ladies in their signature “ao dais,” elegant, body-hugging, sweeping tunics with long sleeves, worn gracefully over loose flowing trousers.

I watch them work. They work, watching me, gathering rice in the paddies untroubled by my gaze, my presence in their land. Curiosity about one another an exchange of smiles, no outward signs of animosity exist between us.

The rice is yellow in the sunshine and begins to drop,
guided by the skillful hands of the ladies harvesting with their simple hand tools. Sickles or hand-held knives, collecting the crop with their expert reaping and cutting.

A fire engine roaring by the blare of siren and horn bring me back from my un-solicited trip to the past.

We are no longer who we were.
Myself, now in civilian attire. The ladies, now in ill-fitting western garb. The "Non La" palm leaf conical hats, a signature symbol of their dress the only lasting reminder, the catalyst for my visit, to a time long passed.

The Non La’s now
shade plastic focused eyes as
their brown hands sift through
piles of trash for this new cash crop,
castaways from our disposable lifestyles.
I watch them move through fields of park benches and trash cans.
Their wobbly-wheeled carts
collect this somber city harvest. Eerily similar to my observation
watching the harvester’s years ago
as they moved through rows of paddies with the same grit and perseverance.

They leave no bag untouched,
every bottle, every can, emptied, tossed into the cart.
This day's harvest a nickel at a time, 
inedible, but a means to subsist just the same.

****

Leo Farley is a United States Army Veteran. He served as a Communications Specialist with the 52nd Signal Battalion in Vietnam from June 1970 to June 1971. He is a Founding Member of the 29th Street Rep Theater in NYC. Currently The Artistic Director of LSMFT Theatre Group LLC, where he teaches and coaches acting. A current member of the Fordham, NYU and Voices from War Writing Workshops here in NYC.