That Old Field of Cotton
The old black man plowed the ground in that baking sun
And sang all those old gospel songs
The rows were straight as an arrow all through the field
As I knew this was where his heart belongs
He was just a share cropper and a mighty fine man
And I never saw him angry or raging mad
All I ever heard was the songs he was singing
Plowing that mule in that field owned by my dad
He rested at the end of row number two
And drank from the water jar I brought
He nodded his satisfaction, then turned that mule around
As old Julep did the best at what she was taught
When he wasn’t plowing he and I sometime a go fishing
As he’d always caught tenfold more than me
He’d laugh when I shook my sweating head
And say while laughing, “it be’s what it be’s.”
Every year the old man would be seen in the old field
It seemed to be twenty acres or more
And his wife always waved as he neared their house
As she rocked in the shade close to the front door
One day he didn’t make it to the field to plow again
And my heart was saddened to the core
He had passed in the night into his final rest
And I knew that those songs I would hear no more
It’s been thirty years since I was down on the farm
But I went back just yesterday
The fields are all grown up, seems no one planted there
And my heart was broken and I couldn’t stay
I went back to the city back to the grit and grime
But I think of those days long gone but not forgotten
And I see the old man smiling as he’s out plowing
And soon all that white in that big field of cotton
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