PUTTING THINGS IN SOCIALIST HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE --george

tomato can geography

the can’s tin from high

in the Bolivian mountains

from the mountain that was all silver

where colonial Spain got rich

and the miners still die young

coughing up their blood from the dust

now the gringo investors get rich

and that’s how tin gets onto the tin plate

that’s rolled into the can

that holds our tomato sauce

along the way there’s been some iron

that comes the Earth and miners and truck drivers 

of Venezuela 

that comes on some of the same ships

manned by the same sailors

along the way there’s a whole history

a whole geography of Earth and Labor

that gets put into the can of tomato sauce

the smelters and steel workers get taken for granted

the rail road workers get taken for granted

and so do the Mexican farm workers

who bend in the hot California sun

picking the tomatoes

dropping the truck loads

into the water bins from which the conveyors

bring the fruit up on the sorting belts

where the Chinese women work

and then to the fillers

the seaming machines

the cookers

all these people, all these lands

before it comes out on your spaghetti