End of an Era

End of an Era

O, Yakima!
How I long for your warm, sage hills!
I’d cover up in your wheat-fields
Like a lost child, found again amongst
Your beautiful golden pear trees!
The smell of the produce stands and
The immigrant workers’ sweat and cherish—
To be cut down like the dead apple-woods
And found again in a Mexican’s hands:
Strong but unforgiving,
Then thrown away

A rotten vagabond am I, searching for
Foreign lands I no longer know!
That I crave the heat-bands, rising
In columns
From the dead grounds of Goldendale,
Passing further and further away from you, O, Home; O, Yakima!
My family’s home, my abiding place; my childhood skies:
I look for you, but you have gone before me
And I am so lost without you, my friend.