THE MIGRANT SONG

or SEE HOW THE LAND YIELDS UP HER TREASURE

by Peter Krug



Up from El Centro and San Bernadino

Bakersfield, Fresno, Meder, Merced

Salinas and Stockton, up to Sacramento

Santa Rosa and Red Bluff and on back again

A hundred thousand men, women, and children

They flow on the highways, the old and the young

In an unending cycle of sowing and reaping

The long valley's labor can never be done



And see how the land yields up her treasures

To man's patient hand



Up in the morning an hour before dawning

They're stretching and yawning, rubbing sleep from their eyes

With the last stars still quivering in the morning breeze

shivering

The sun is just lightening the easternmost skies

Soon in the big open trucks they will travel

Crammed in together, crowded like cattle

Over pavement, over gravel, over dirt roll the wheels

Out to the orchards, the vineyards, the fields



Soon in the long rows the swift hands are toiling

In the day's growing heat, in the dusty rows boiling

The sun presses down like a hot heavy hand

At the backs of the laborers working the land

In the shade of the oak trees by the side of the field rows

Dirty and shoeless the young children play

While fathers and mothers, older sisters and brothers

Toil on their knees in the heat of the day



Down from the highway come men in brown uniforms

Questioning, checking and searching and soon

One or two whose papers are not in order

Are gone from the crew in the hot afternoon

When the sun has descended and the long day is ended

It's back to the trucks wiping sweat from their eyes

Tired and weary and covered all over

With fruit juice and brown dust, with sweat and black flies



When there's crops in the field rows and grapes in the vineyards

When the limbs in the orchards bow down to the ground

There's food on the table, there's clothes for the children

There's singing and dancing and joy all around

But with skies grey as iron and icy winds whistling

And frost in the field and no work to be found

Through cold nights they huddle and hunger and struggle

Till spring brings back sweetness and life to the ground



Copyright Peter Krug

@work @farm @migrant

see also DEPORTE and PASTPLEN

filename[ HOWLAND

SF

===DOCUMENT BOUNDARY