la defensa del campo

Sunrise comes slowly,
shouldering
the weight of careless rain.
The mourning doves,
hungry but frightened,
wade cautiously
across damp leaves.
Within the drowned earth,
through muddy soil,
the feast rises,
and the birds reap
what has been sown.

The man,
startled out of dreams
of fertile land
and fertile life
by the coarse call to arms
of the emboldened cockerel.
His eyes
bear the weight
of years of labor,
and his throat
is cracked,
dry as the floor
of the Sonora.

The man
watches the battalion
of hungry creatures
scorching the earth,
undoing the week's work,
the week's worth.
He reaches for his gun
and pours into the flooded field.
He fires a round,
the army disperses,
and the fort
has been held -
Labor Omnia Vincit.