Wrath of Grapes

The tears of God have left the gray earth with plenty to drink. And now the pink sky rests calmly, mysteriously, smiling upon its own rippling reflection.

They say the words of wise men live past their author's untimely demise. The benign Radical, a result not cause, whose concept plants the seed for the next day and whose roots bring forth new meaning. One day, when the soil is ripe for birth, the concept shall blossom with its roots imbedded firmly against the prejudice and doubt that surrounds the united force of Manself; an everlasting rose whose distinct scent of truth will be forever inherited by the wind.

Across the green hills and dry desert plains lays a place like perdition drenched in bitter rain. The machines of labor, the machines of genius and the machines of hope float in the undulating sky. The iron ore is reclaimed by the earth, the iron oxide rediscovered bit by bit and recycled into the precious womb of the scarred earth. A chemistry only known to the shores of Eden is restored to the soil under the shallow waters of the flood. Above the waters lay the virgin country, and farther up rests the people, and farther up exists the unknown spirit of the E Pluribus Unum.

The migrants are one with this soul, and all elements that seem to undermine its existence are part and particle of its own suffering. The frontier is closed. But the terrain has yet to be explored. Poverty, starvation and the daunting specter of death may strip the migrants of their body and mind; but it will leave their collective soul unscathed. The danger of tractors still haunts the horizon as a frightening monstrosity of cold steel and greed. And the moon does nothing but shed a lamentable face on the ordeal ahead of us.

And then suddenly, the machines that pushed those families off their land lost its steam. The days and nights that their children went without supper and the constant pestilence of starvation went on. We fear the day when bread is merely taken but is not broken. And we fear that when that day comes, when we sever ourselves from our chords, "we" will have become just like the "they." The starvation did not change the migrants so that they would fear death; but it tested their hope and it cut sorely into their collective souls. And even if men are brutal to one another, we should realize that the true fight is within oneself, for those that fight against us do not know us. Those that starve, subjugate, steal, cheat, lie and murder us do not know us-there is an invisible barrier constructed by man, those that carry the