The crushed grape
     withers on the vine
no gnarled hands to pick it
    no one to make wine.

      Lettuce now lost
       wilts on its row
   the empty fields forgotten
by scythe and sickle and hoe.

    Cotton worms slowly
       drying in the sun
  if there were backs to 
           to carry it
    but there are none.

      Fruit long past ripe
   falls heavy to the ground
and bursts its rotting entrails
      with a sluggish sound.

 The fields are all in mourning
rotting blackly in their sorrow
  for the people of the harvest
who will not return tomorrow.

The grapevine now a grave mark
   for every back-wrenched soul
     that spent a life of labor
          and died giving
          birth to growth.

The poison that protects the field
      often kills the worker
       the sun that ignites
       orchards to bloom

     beats hard upon the child
        and sucks life away.
When the field has finished rotting
    and gives herself to bloom
    be aware of the many souls
       in the orchards perfume
in the fine green skin of the plant

    in the sweetness of the fruit
          in the soil dark
    with my people’s blood
            in the fiber
            of the root.