DEEP SOUTH 2002

So this turned into a
     trip about heat,
              exploring civil rights
 battlefields of long
       ago (or just yesterday,
            if you please), a great heat, a deep
     heat, a deep south heat not grits, but
               brains turned to grits harder to focus
this year, to listen, to

            absorb, but so much easier
to imagine did slaves pick
             cotton in ovens like
this? Oh yes, now I see
           it.  Did those shotgun
  shanties fight for breaths of air,
               not an air-conditioner in
     sight?  Now I get it.  And those sharecroppers,
                slowly barbecuing on the
grill, did their work songs run down into                        
             sweaty puddles at their
      feet?  Ok, now I
             feel it.  So this

is the South as revealed to us, red-
   hot and glowing, in a trip
                  through
                          great heat.


The Deep South Trip
April 14-21 2002
           


All written material © Bill Schechter, 2016
Contact Bill Schechter