Three Chores, One Country Day 2

Resource added
for only dank Necessity, I knew, now standing in the barnyard, could have whipped me there—not even wages, common need— mired in piles of odors animal as four-legged corpses, secret as the laws unrolling tumblebugs hiding their savings, dungbedding their young in blankets so feverish, so fetid that I leaned upon the pitchfork standing there as if it were my skeleton companion, fellow-workman dead in service, kept on the rolls to teach Apprentice Me all species of contamination. Remembering, I tied my handkerchief, still soaked in pungent salve, nose-level around my face; the shiny pitchfork laughed, my senses said, till I manured it with a load as desperate as the slowness of the sun; and both of us grew dark—with sweat or slime— struggling with the contours of the mounds. I wheelbarrowed some away, dug deeper in the coiling smells, the exhaling shapes, until my vile-grained wooden arm forked randomly, pensively, as if in tired hope to upturn barnyard possibilities of cleanline form and lovely motion. My mind, unfocused, lulled in speculative air, fell back to muckworms, elbow strain— reviving only when the westward rhythms of my task rocked up and down my view the pasture lane, its upper cornhusk patches yellowing a strung-out arrow pointed hillward, where the rhythms stopped, then paused, then moved again (reluctance in me backward grinding, giving in to the final chore). contd

Full description

Poem written by Emanuel in 1979/1980 detailing everyday chores of living in the rural Midwest in the United States, while simultaneously alluding to the trauma of slavery. (Page 2)

Comments

Log in to view and add comments.

Annotations

No one has annotated a text with this resource yet.

  • type
    Image
  • created on
  • file format
    jpg
  • file size
    776 kB
  • container title
    James A. Emanuel Papers
  • creator
    James A. Emanuel
  • issue
    BOX 4 FOLDER 26, "The Chopping Block (Selected Poems)," draft 1988 (1 of 2)
  • rights
    James A. Emanuel Estate
  • rights holder
    James A. Emanuel Estate
  • version
    1979/1980