See this wrinkled face of leather.

Feel these hands worn brittle hard.

Fifty years I have been in the fields

And yet I am just now fifty-five.

At five, I walked by the side of my mother.

Though I did not know it then,

She was pregnant with another girl.

My playground was after hours, at night,

Near the quarters, as they were called—

Raw, unfinished framed buildings,

Even the storage barns looked better.

My mother, my father, my brothers—

All of them called migrant workers,

As I would soon be also called.

No schools, no doctors on call,

Only work, always, always hard work.

My father was already crippled of hands

At only thirty-one years old,

And aged enough to die at forty.

What did my youthfulness lose

On the vineyards to enrich those

Who owned the land and sometimes

Thought they owned all of us.

As he sat there upon the mountain top

Looking out at the native lands below,

The GREAT WHITE SPIRIT strode across the sky,

Trailing a great cloak of fleece-white clouds

Shedding tears onto the desolated lands below.

Oh! How great be his sorrow

With lakes and rivers poisoned by man,

With mountains and plains denuded of trees—

That leafy expression of His great love.

The buffalo no longer stomp over the plains

Filling the sky with a thunder of hooves.

Never again come the great flocks of birds

Darkening the sun with an abundance of wings.

Prairie grass no longer grows high enough

For a man to hide himself within.

There are no quiet woods in which to walk a mile.

No clean, sweet stream from which to drink,

Is the mournful cry of the wolf.

And the upland plains are now turned to dust.

Oh, GREAT SPIRIT, is this how it is to end?

From wounds caused by harvesting,

Dust particles in the sunlight shine

When winds stir high the land.

The soothing ointment of rain,

Winter dressings of pure snow

Heal these cuts before spring comes

When life, again, renews earth’s bosom—

Similar in ways to man’s struggles

To reach the goals we need

To fulfill our hearts’ and souls’ desires

Keeping us feeling wholly alive.

Gurus sit on mountaintops

To catch wisdom from the ages

As it drifts by on solar winds.

Misunderstanding the words

And collecting tainted money,

Sugar-coating ancient proverbs,

They often speak of mundane things.