An occasional poem, written in farewell to The Ranch:

In farms and ranches
men have labored,
long hands passing through grimy sun
and breeze-brushed twilight.
Day or night
does not matter,
only the labor
of strip-mined
hearts
and cracked
hands
and exhausted,
un-rotated minds.
Some mornings:
oranges
straining to burst
against damming
peels.
Some mornings:
tanned
and tender
from moon
and her shine.
Each morning:
horseshit
and daybreak prayers.
In farms and ranches
men have dreamed
of vineyards in
cities and deep glassy
seas. But today
the almond tree
blossoms and the grasshopper
drag himself along,
so for uncertain wages,
today we will labor.