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 breathes 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 2nd Deep South Trip
April 14-21 2002