Tomato Picker

Labouring all day in the sun
These ‘sweatshops in the fields’
Span wide over this horizon,
These crops that never end.
Nothing much else grows around here,
Tomatoes, tomatoes, its all I see
Everywhere I look.
It all seems to be about control,
Of people, weeds,
Sometimes I’m not sure if they know the difference.
This has become my life, for now,
Till winter comes again.

Goodbye, sweet children,
Farewell, lovely wife,
Later this year we’ll meet again
But for now, my duty to you is calling.
Over boarders I must cross
In search for bread.

I don’t have much choice,
I can’t go anywhere else
This farm is all I know
So isolated from anything else
In this country I heard was so free.

I’m tied to this employer,
I can’t go find work some other place.
I’m not a real citizen, you see.
This mere fact limits me
In everyway and everything
That I could ever do.

I am only seasonal, temporary
So I don’t get to explore
I’m stuck here all day,
Sweating buckets
Little pay
Your country’s famous protections
Seem to have left me out.