Cotton Pickers Lament

Cotton Picker’s Lament Feet burn soul blends with the earth, the heat, the picking season Hands, hard calloused leather punctuated by picking scars Drag that long sack behind me across black bottom earth— Cottonseed tucked into its sprouting place, waiting for the sun to make it spring White from its deflowered purple-black boll Exploding like my brain in the heat-- That old river floods into my fields cooling’ Leathered hot feet in muddied delta earth Leaving part of Memphis between my toes— I go into those off beat juke joints at night to drink my pain Away and listen to the blues reach deep into my soul Crying for me and for all of us, those Delta Blues! Toothless, grinning, strumming cigarette smoking, whisky breath fools breaking sounds across early morning light lamenting love, lost times, freedom. Freedom? Man is never free, just gets new masters-- Straggle home- dawn breaks Sunday- Church Calls, songs of belief echo across Delta flats White shingled churches hold the promise of another freedom-- Jesus where are you when I call from those fields Cotton boll hard, painful against my moving hands Must be like you felt, thorns pressed into your head. Back bent never straight from years of bending Shoulders strong from hauling that sack Cotton sack breaks my back-- Sunup - misty Monday morning in the Delta Mississippi fields where cotton is king and I its slave Old muddy river runs faster then I do- at least going somewhere… Bend my back, twist that boll, never can straighten up and walk like a man!