Classic Poem

… The villages of the wastelands do not yield rice
with their forest tracts where neither trunks nor leaves flourish
but the two kinds of millet are all they have and all
of that is gone, given away to those who came to him in need
. . . . . . . . . . he is satisfied.
Though that is how he stands, bard, after you have eaten
curds poured into milk in a pot with a jujube fruit . . . . . .
and strong toddy sour as a kalavu berry . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . and savory pieces of dried meat
together with grains from plucked ears, cooked with a pouring
of ghee and pulpy white rice stirred with a ladle
and you're happily sitting . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . he will give
gifts if you go to him and you sing of the king of a village
where a hare comes to chew the small
fragrant munnai vine spreading at the foot of a palmyra palm in a courtyard.