Field Hands on Plantation Night

Frank Stanford

The long blue light of the fox You can't get it anymore
An old porter who's had too many women to read lips No more
Curb Service free soda crackers in the barrel or Shade
Tree Mechanics worth a damn Done with That's it Jack
Guts busted like a row Kneecaps you can't live down
When the shark bites you revive your leg swat the mosquito
who's trying to swamp your dory with the bilge of your own blue
blood Me and a man named Dark did it We did it all most of it We
have been working this ground so long turning under
shadows of the land evenly here and there we got dark
the hell we did being sharecroppers to hunger and deathbeds Partners
Us as we saw us Thing Us like purple moths drinking from
a puddle having mudpies for supper with the Mooncalf No Sir
Cloudlike beholding to misery escaping mad dogs and serpents at dusk
Sumrnoned to spring loose boards the frost nailed to get her
her Whenever machinery was broke down fish scales like dimes
Mules and socks in the gully Anything with a voice Power
Line Companies making their switch the blue-eyed termites with sons
to look after and put through school Radio stations that don't
come in blunt tools fins like rocking chairs and stripped lumber
Spar Varnish you peel like scabs of chickenpox when you rest
six minutes like a scud and then all done Holler at Dark Sing
Is the kingdom of the fury of the dust the dimwitted ice
the dim and the rubbed and the spun fireflies and lizards
in a jelly jar your friends like salt on saltpork you cut
for bait Is the glory spilled and hewn and pulled and weighed
Bucktoothed and in pain and knowing better my belt cinched
tight as a dirt dobber I licked all of my mashed fingers
and read the books that smelled of Will Percy's stables
and Swedish tobacco swaying nearly fifty foot up in the limbs
of a whitewashed oak There like a dead and testament in a vault
I saw moonlighting singers fall asleep at the levers of a bulldozer
and cousins going steady going the whole way coast down the levee
in the backseats of their convertibles Three evenings in a row
I read Lauren Bacall's mind in The Big Sleep at Trueblood's Drive Inn
when she had to light her own smoke Two weeks later when
the Consolidated was let out for chopping a long black Lincoln
pulled up outside with no chauffeur A tall drunk man in a big hat
and leather chaps got out asking for directions He was white
with a guitar fine as a Ring-Necked Pheasant slung over his shoulder
so low When I climbed down that is when I was called down
for dinner Big Emma said Child I just had the pleasure of speaking
with Mr. Hank Williams He's asking where a woman is buried
I hitched the mule and we trailed the dust his limousine was kicking
up I told Big Emma It's not much of an entourage for a famous man
but I bet we'll catch him at the Moon Lake graveyard And we did
I thought about it clear into August I kept thinking Tomorrow
is bound to be another day but the dream was like a soft-shelled turtle
that always takes your bait Hold on until you blister Dark said
But I did see Hank Williams kneel down on one leg his big hat under
his long arm in a growed-up cemetery He was like the captain
of a football team saying a prayer before the homecoming game
You wontt believe me and Miss Emma has passed away but the both
of us saw a Luna Moth fly out of that hole in his guitar After
he'd blown his nose and left I winded myself running after that fly
There was something written on the stone in some crawdad French
I never did understand Je sens mon cuer qui s'affoiblit
Et plus je ne puis papier Or something to that effect It was
a queer tombstone No name and no dates Just like an abandoned boat
That tarred tree full of larvae mold ants and knife blades
struck by lightning twice and once by a speeding woman
was nearly a bed to me 0 I got dizzy alright With two spoons
and nothing in the bowl I could forget the nicked china on the counter
The Lord Eating Olives In Gethsemane J.F.K. and Col. Bob Neyland
leading the Tennessee Volunteer Fight Song and some good stuff
from England rattling like snake babies when the Yellow Dog passed by
cruising full of rice and hobos And then the water buckets would
rust out and there would be strange hammering in the barn at night
Men still rode then shallow pawed sunderers foxing the daylights
out of them Dark and I we shaeed quicksongs hollered at the top
of a loft and a bed We put the barbed wire's spit curls in place
Nobody not a soul would speak when he shoved open a bad door
Dark got sent up before on second degree Then he went under
the name Tom Beck But I don't recollect who he was he says
The hoot owl and the mourning dove were new gaskets for a truck
In the middle of the evening we heard mice swallow crumbs
cold latches biting the fingers of strange fellows with accents
Father Dark what was it quick tell me what was that noise
and if there was a good moon you needed wading boots and sunglasses
When things were going bad for us morning was a sledge hammer
The wideopen woods of the country a long handle to it
hitting a screwball with the label up Where do you think bats
and tablets come from Old rags and burned antimacassars and good timber
The Mills will take most anything and make it stink to high heaven
We got slugged alright In Come Back Little Sheba the smiling
Chiropractor said Drrems are funny like that Dark said Let them
like blood Let them know where you come from If a man comes looking
for you tell him or them like you was asking him but tell him
You werentt looking for me Take a wagon full of roots down the side
of the levee Be done with it As I recall Dark was a long throated man
but never said much He was like an Indigo Snake where sunlight and shade
meet He beat things to death with a flashlight slender things
living in the bedspread His feet were like grandfather bullfrogs
and they always smelled of Cashmere Bouquet Passed out he'd talk
in his sleep about his sons his trove of suck rocks and the snapshot
autographed by F.D.R. stolen years ago He'd come to under the quarter
moon jerking his legs like a man forced to clean a ditch
with a ball and chain around his ankle liting out the first chance
he had running nearly away from the road gang leaping
from a rotten bridge when it was too dark to see the river
landing on a barge full of soybeans scared safe Women he would
say have lain down here in this field of mallards and stars
Blue Tick hounds peed on us too while we were sleeping even
When it comes time I want you to lift I want you to let them know
that I have a hundred more just like you

Ginny Stanford