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Our Children Are in the Fields Today
harvesting cherries, apples, onions–we will eat.
Our labor laws have flaws that make their dreams decay.
.
Their lives fray like sweaters
you wear when weather turns leaves from granny smith greens to–
golden nectarines, pomegranates, and sunshine lemons.
Their days are sour
picking ripe cherries off trees
Monday to Sunday.
No sitting crisscross applesauce.
No sipping from their juice boxes.
You–
eat your cherry pie in the autumn breeze.
You–
eat your onion dip on football Sundays.
You–
drink hot apple cider,
eat their fruit, dilute their dreams.
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Our children try to be providers,
we hand them laws to mute their screams.
.
a child dies every 3 days
We look the other way and pray
before we eat.
Eyes closed, hands holding each other
I can feel the pulse of my mother
her heart still beats.
But the basis of the food we eat
puts scars and scabs on children’s feet.
Are you satisfied with the lies our country feeds us?
No labor laws protect our children from
pesticide poisoning, heat strokes, reds spots on their arms
33 children are harmed every day
.
Our children are working
until their bones can work no longer,
until their bodies become grass,
and get cut up like onions.
.
How many children will pass
before we pass the CARE act?
Don’t act like you care
America,
how dare you profit off children?
.
Our children are in the fields today.
Numbed fingertips, they are stuck.
They get paid by pieces of fruit they place in a truck.
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Cydney Brown is the 2020 Philadelphia Youth Poet Laureate and author of “Daydreaming.” She is a Freshman at Northwestern University and has been writing poetry since she was in 5th grade. Brown has been featured in The New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, 6abc, Philadelphia Citizen, and Fox29. She is the recipient of The Romero Scholarship For Excellence In Spoken Word. She is a Gold Award Girl Scout, recipient of The Good Citizenship Award, and Shine Global’s Youth Activist Award. Cydney wishes to inspire people to speak their truth and share her poetry with the world.
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North of Oxford 