Classic Poem

Spiked thorns all over, and a thirty-foot wall;
towering entrance with iron bolts
double doors sealed shut.
The minor clerk of the granary
with gray whiskers and green shirt
writes out ten columns of vermilion characters
on the wood-plank board.
Standing in front of an official banner,
all day he reads out loud;
with clipped tallies, people form lines,
and listen to the numbers being called.
The rich families get plenty of grain,
piles of it like hills;
their big carriages go creaking off,
taking two oxen to pull;
A hungry man from the countryside
stands beneath the wall:
he too wants to come forward for grain,
but the clerk just curses at him.