Wee, grey, humble, wriggly creature,

you bore through claggy soil intent to meet your

simple needs, in which bugs feature.

Decaying leaves as well.

Your modest aspirations serve to teach your

masters. Can they tell?

You make no claims to be a star.

Content, you value what you are.

You live within your means, so far

from medals made of gold.

You sail your vermal craft, an earthbound tar,

impervious to heat or freezing cold.

But when the coulter flashes, please beware!

The deadly chopping, slicing sharp ploughshare

can with its deadly blade incise and tear,

reducing you to segments decimate.

That insult is much more than you could bear,

so burrow down, hold fast and calmly wait.

The farmer seeks to spare your wrinkled skin.

He values all the hard work you put in,

aerating soil by probing deep within.

You are the unsung hero of his land.

He knows that with your help he’ll win

the prize for growing vegetables so grand.

Industrious annelid take a bow.

You offer so much more than any cow

to loamy, rich and fertile earth – and how!

An understated slippery little thing

your subterranean graft will fain endow

a harvest fit to make the farmer sing.