Where the dead once gathered. I met John Eagle via Soundcloud. He had written poems based on the sharecroppers era that took place in the USA in the first half of the 20th century. I asked him to put some of them to music and he shared them with me. This one was culled from a photograph he found online and after careful study of the people and their surroundings, he imagined this story. He had seen many families like this in Wilkinson County, Mississippi in the 1960s -- a tiny shanty on the hardpan dirt, not a tree anywhere, the loggers clear-cutting all the way through, a triumph of the spirit to survive. I tried to gave them a dusty folk air, trying to emulate Woody Guthrie, Bruce Springsteen or John Mellencamp. Where the dead once gathered (lyrics John Eagle) Mama was always standing in the doorway, A faded cotton dress made her blue. Uncle Ike, hands clasped, sat the bench His tattered hat rakish for the odd look; And the barefooted kids looked Like tombstones along the porch. This was back during the pulpwood boom: There wasn’t a hare or squirrel to be had Across the scars of earth left by the haulers; Yet it left plenty room for the turnip patch And the hot sun beat a dusty path Each day until the pop of jug and chord of blues. Then came the khaki masses With their broad smiles and rucksacks. They mopped their brows planting little seeds; Uncle Ike just waved, adjusted his hat, But mama turned back into darkness, Then shooed the children from the pie safe. Years passed along this dusty parcel And the turnip patch grew with the brood; And when the sun’s long rays shortened, And the orange of the horizon darkened, The little trees grew into saplings Like fine hairs on the ole hawg’s back; But no one here would ever live to see the shade.
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 15:06:30 +0000
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