Pick a Bale of Cotton

Pick a Bale of Cotton

Jump down, turn around to pick
a bale of cotton;
Jump down, turn around to pick
a bale a day.*

Oh Lordy, pick a bale of cotton,
Oh Lordy, pick a bale a day.

That nigger from Shiloh can pick
a bale of cotton,
That nigger from Shiloh can pick
a bale a day.

Me and my gal can pick a bale of cotton,
Me and my gal can pick a bale a day.

Me and my wife can pick a bale of cotton,
Me and my wife can pick a bale a day.

Me and my buddy can pick
a bale of cotton,
Me and my buddy can pick
a bale a day.

Me and my poppa can pick
a bale of cotton,
Me and my poppa can pick
a bale a day.

Takes a might big man to pick
a bale of cotton,
Takes a might big man to pick
a bale a day.

NOTE: A bale of cotton weighs about
a quarter of a ton.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE9QYkkxyVQ

Brown Circle

My mother wants to know
why, if I hate
families so much,
I went ahead and
had one. I don't
answer my mother.
What I hated
was being a child,
having no choice about
what people I loved.

I don't love my son
the way I meant to love him.
I thought I'd be
the lover of orchids who finds
red trillium growing
in the pine shade, and doesn't
touch it, doesn't need
to possess it. What I am
is the scientist,
who comes to that flower
with a magnifying glass

and doesn't leave, though
the sun burns a brown
circle of grass around
the flower. Which is
more or less the way
my mother loved me.

I must learn
to forgive my mother,
now that I'm helpless
to spare my son.

Louise Gluck
1990

Image Anatomy of a Flower
http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tulip/spring2008

Commission

Go, my songs, to the lonely and the unsatisfied,
Go also to the nerve-racked, go to the enslaved-by-convention,
Bear to them my contempt for their oppressors.
Go as a great wave of cool water,
Bear my contempt of oppressors.

Speak against unconscious oppression,
Speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative,
Speak against bonds.
Go to the bourgeoise who is dying of her ennuis,
Go to the women in suburbs.
Go to the hideously wedded,
Go to them whose failure is concealed,
Go to the unluckily mated,
Go to the bought wife,
Go to the women entailed.

Go to those who have delicate lust,
Go to those whose delicate desires are thwarted,
Go like a blight upon the dullness of the world;
Go with your edge against this,
Strengthen the subtle cords,
Bring confidence upon the algae and tentacles of the soul.

Go in a friendly manner,
Go with an open speech.
Be eager to find new evils and new good,
Be against all forms of oppression.
Go to those who are thickened with middle age,
To those who have lost their interest.

Go to the adolescent who are smothered in family --
Oh how hideous it is
To see three generations of one house gathered together!
It is like an old tree with shoots,
And with some branches rotted and falling.

Go out and defy opinion,
Go against this vegetable bondage of the blood.
Be against all sorts of mortmain.

Ezra Pound
1916

image from http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.bonsai4me.com/Images/ATBerberisProgressionSeries/berberis%25201206.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.bonsai4me.com/AdvTech/ATBerberisProgressionSeries.htm&usg=__CYyKYntSPBq9cr2Bxl9pdoiX6w8=&h=488&w=500&sz=63&hl=en&start=32&tbnid=o2WgTMmQfrC1CM:&tbnh=127&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dold%2Btree%2Bnew%2Bshoots%26start%3D18%26ndsp%3D18%26hl%3Den%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN