They strike--let the wheat fall cotton blow and fruit rot--the workers
sing freedom & yes they return
(in angry solidarity) hesitating
to murmur before the pay-window.

They sing "God's in the Fields,"
uplifted voices pieced together to
assault the bus, every window
a choir of infinity (I never understood
that phrase until the pickers sang "there
arose great storms, such terror never
had been known in all the land, such great
and terrible tempests and terrible thunder")
from assembled counterpoints
in the darkening cane-breaks.

Grubby life is rarely "winged with awe"
and seldom inviolable.
The sun plunges on an ambulance
bumping over windrows as a chopper's
newborn daughter coughs inside.
The mother, groin packed with rags,
Fights the medic for her machete. She
won't let go--it's paid for.