My Migration Page

Migration

The dry land crawls through drought and dust.
Black skies rain dirt and grit.
Fields cry in shame as gang plows rust,
men's throats too dry to spit.

Silt drifts in ripples 'cross wood floors.
No broom can sweep enough.
The larders bare, they've closed the stores,
lean pickin's make times rough.

The banks foreclose as mothers cry,
can't even buy a job.
The barren fields abandoned lie
beneath a dust lynch mob.

What once was fertile wastes away
as dust storms coat men's eyes.
Their dreams long lost, their tears portray
hopes gone as each farm dies.

The battle lost, belongings packed,
though smothered still in dust.
Their travel slow, roads dried and cracked,
 to land out west or bust.

Jalopies moan and beg clean air
as lines clog up with sand.
The engine chokes and heaves a prayer
to find the Promised Land.

As muscles ache and bellies groan,
the journey's end seems near,
 but troopers say in calloused tone,
"There's nothing for you here."

"I'll tell you sir, about a place
where days are black as night,
where kerosene won't light your face,
fine dust drowns out the light."

"My chickens all are dead and buried
deep in dust from drought.
The newborn calves my cows had carried
died as milk dried out."

"We bow and pray to God each night,
"Don't let our babies die."
Small sallow faces once shone bright,
now they're too weak to cry."

"We had no wheat for chicken feed.
My fields lay dead, inert.
We left behind a worthless deed,
our farm knee-deep in dirt."

The lane was cleared for us to go.
The trooper said no more.
The migrant camp lay down below.
Our lives begin once more.