Greenville, Mississippi - 1957

A dirty old sidewalk runs in front of grandma's house with bumps and cracks from the roots of ancient white-oak Armed with cane poles and sack lunches crickets and freshly dug earth worms we meander down to the levee barefoot in careless summers One low spot beneath a straggly Chinaberry filled with pitch-black delta dirt washed in by summer rains We shuffle through and dig down cooling our toes