Last Alfalfa Harvest
Zanker Road, San José, California, 1999
Newly-cut alfalfa lies in clumps, drying,
readying itself for the cattle and horses.
The men who built twenty buildings across the street
have staked out their claim.
In a matter of days they will come with bulldozers,
plow under the alfalfa, and
scoop away the soil.
The earth will not leave them alone.
In the evening, each man will return home
with his hard hat and jeans coated in red dust
that will not come out in the wash.
At the dinner table, the men will eat hamburgers,
drink cow's milk, and somewhere
in the deep recesses of their tongues,
they will taste a few green cells.
They will have mild headaches, indigestion,
and dreams about losing their teeth
and hair. The construction bosses
and financiers will not sleep at all,
leave their houses in the morning
with the grass in the front yard scruffy and going to seed.
But for now, the alfalfa remains.
The crow perches on the chain link fence
and a lone palm shades the farmhouse
that will fall to the bulldozers as easily as the alfalfa.
Like green things, the men will someday fall,
their soil will be stripped away,
and buildings will rise up on top of them.
Kathy Abelson