A Button, a Nickle, or a Broken-blade Knife

A Button, a Nickle, or a Broken-blade Knife

I suppose you could search-out
the whole 40 acres
of that poor dirt farm
and you may find a button
a nickel from '35
or a broken-blade knife.

But that's all.

It had little to give for years
either side
of that brass coverall, adjustable slide buckle
pulled from an overturned clod.

When I stand on this tarred
and oiled
back-country Arkansas road
all I can ferret out
are heartache, tears and sweat.

How does a man lash himself
to a dull-edged plow
and link his fortune
with the bow-back mule
strapped to the blade? 

It hardly ever rained
but when it did
it came 
like a New England 'nor wester
then settle  
to a days-long soaker.

The clay soil gagged on all that 
muddy water
and shuck it off
doing little for the baby cotton sprouts
it held inches down in its
pregnant belly. 

Feast or famine.

Broken down trucks groaned
hauling a family's modest treasures
out from here 
everyday
as a dreary parade of 
broken hopes and empty dreams
ached by.

Nobody waved to neighbors 
as they passed.
No furtive smiles
or wave of a hand.
Rather, they looked away
in shame
feeling they had
betrayed the soil
and not the other way around.

Early morning radio
broadcast the list
of those who'd died
over the night.
They would cluck their tongues
as they strapped down 
a century-old 
horsehair sofa
handed down two generations ago.

They all came through here.
Right where I stand.

My friend
if you can't see them
then I would argue
it's you needing pity
and the clucking tongue.