I need to know you in my cloudless days,
when knees in peasant solitude caress
the slow sun’s wheat, and lifted elbows graze
the brow where drops of blindness coalesce.

I need to know you in the blinding storm,
when pinwheel limbs for sullen wages work
the thieving windmill, and doubts of justice swarm
where labourers in cold-sweat legions lurk

and await their hour. I need to know you now,
as wrist and will begin to move as one
against profit’s piracy, and as the brow
beads clear thoughts of struggle and battles won.

I need to know that from my labour grow
such fruits of freedom as you may come to know.

© Douglas Elves 1985, set to music by Alan Gilliland, 1997, and performed by Pro Coro Choir, Edmonton. See and listen.