Out of Lodi Ash, 1934: for Mother

In Lodi smoke rises burning
her young eyes. Tomato-worms heaped
child-high reeked as they
writhed in immolation. The
whole family toiling in
the fields, long days, hand-picking,
not fruit, but hornworms; prying off
well-camouflaged green-white
caterpillars tightly gripping
the scented vines they leach and
defoliate under the lens of the
San Joaquin Valley sun. Though their
horns look menacing tomato
worms are harmless except to
the plants. Still she hated touching
the wriggling, bucking, fattened
things. Worse yet the pangs of hunger
after a thieving partner, also
camouflaged, sells the farm out from
under her father. Maybe his
English wasn't good enough to know
a contract then. Maybe he was
too trusting. Still, he wasn't in
Sicily anymore but
America, maybe he let
down his guard. But he had to
wonder and feel the sting. How
exactly does a man steal the
livelihood of another
he has worked beside and with
whose family he has dined?
A bitter smoke rose from out the
ashes of agricultural
burnings in Lodi. And so, it
seems, did they.