adapted from Itinerant Life Weighs on Farmworkers’ Children
"In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." - John Steinbeck
The same dull school uniform
unwashed, still smelling of sweat and smoke,
is worn on the same small shoulders for the third day
Madre and Padre working in the fields
Bent in two, picking tomatoes, broccoli, onions
Living in bombed-out trailers
Crowded with breath and bodies
Parents exhausted by endless harvest,
Children raise each other
Cook simple meals of beans, tortillas, and salsa
Hope to be a Marine, a teacher, a doctor, a man with soft hands
Some families harvest lettuce from November to April
They journey from Salinas to Yuma, reliable as rain
Children move from school to school
Struggling with reading, numbers, fatigue, hunger
We eat their grapes , oranges and almonds
Give roses they cut
Savor strawberries they selected on knees
with callused hands knotted by clutching field knives
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