For my father and all the other young men, black and white, who worked the tobacco fields of Virginia in the first half of the twentieth century.
December 28, 2006
Crickets mate
against the smoky red skies of sunset.
Plow mules chew on dry weeds in the fields
waiting to be taken in for the night.
A splintered barn sits on the hill
with strands of ivy protruding from its frame;
built during antebellum days
when slaves cured tobacco inside its walls.
A young man
in the prime of his life
pulls tobacco leaves
with his russet colored fingers.
Beads of sweat drip from his broad forehead
as he sings gospel songs with a choir of other workers.
Sweet and low, sweet chariot
coming here to carry me home.
His day’s work
brings him two dollars closer
to feeding his wife and new baby
on the other side of the railroad tracks.
His companion
with creamy skin the color of ripe pineapples
toils beside him
in the heavy July heat.
When his work is done for the night
he will go home to a meal
of sweet potatoes and turnip greens
with his family in the Big House next door
Miscegenation is present in
the common thread
of their life’s work
if not in the shade of their offspring.
The darker man uses the outhouse
covering the colored sign as he enters.
The year is 1942.
Jim Crow is a staple crop of Virginia.
Light and dark
Sunburned and chocolate brown
They all labor on their hands and knees in the same field
Until the tobacco sky mixes its hues to form a husky gray
and white goes one way
and black another.