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.

Revelation

Revelation 2:17
"He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it."
Revelation 3:5
"The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels."