Sioux City Milk War (1932)

Sing muses if you will
Of what opened once
In the “spread” between
What farmers earned
For milk and the price
Consumers paid at the lip
Of the Depression. Speak 
Of roads shut by mazes
Of hay bales, hot farmers
With shotguns asking
Drivers their “business,”
And the ditches running
White with the poured-
Out milk on this holiday,
Which was the word
Used in place of strike.
Tell us again of that long-
Ago August and those
For whom justice became
Urgent. Sing of the right
To collective bargaining,
If you love us, or let
The silence, eloquent
Around that lost history,
Speak here of fearfulness.
Chant the history of hikes
And dips in land prices,
The diminishing numbers
Of farms, and remember,
Now, the great corporations:
Wielders of the cease and
Desist letters: whose names
(Removed here) we must not
Take in vain. May the talking
Flower or satellite dish—
From which our Avatar
Partially emerges—echo 
The words of Mr. Archie
Wright, who saw the small
Farm as the basis of our
Democracy, and said:
To live, you have to think.