I Almost Forgot About You by Terry McMillan



I'm still fiddling around with Terry McMillan's last novel. Really, I'm wringing my hands for her next novel. Have you started one yet, Ms. McMillan? I've Never thought much about farmers, I have met  one or two in my life. I have seen two or three hogs. I have admired barns. However, I have never thought of the issues faced by farmers each day. I've never thought of their rewards either.

This morning I'm feeling a bit in awe of Black farmers. I've looked on the internet and seen some farmers who look like cowboys, others who look like admirable grandfathers. All of these men who seem strong enough to handle every situation and gentle enough to pick up a clod of dirt and look up thanking God for what it can and will grow. Thank you Ms. McMillan for widening my knowledge in another novel.


To the Negro Farmers of the United States

By Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson
God washes clean the souls and hearts of you,
His favored ones, whose backs bend o’er the soil,
Which grudging gives to them requite for toil
In sober graces and in vision true.
God places in your hands the pow’r to do
A service sweet. Your gift supreme to foil
The bare-fanged wolves of hunger in the moil
Of Life’s activities. Yet all too few
Your glorious band, clean sprung from Nature’s heart;
The hope of hungry thousands, in whose breast
Dwells fear that you should fail. God placed no dart
Of war within your hands, but pow’r to start
Tears, praise, love, joy, enwoven in a crest
To crown you glorious, brave ones of the soil.
poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/52755

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Catherine E. Mckinley had a deep desire to know about Indigo. It became her purpose.

Image
"We watched the woman disappear into the bend of the road. It was unsettling. She seemed possessed, driven by some mimetic force. I was afraid that that force was also a part of me. I was also a worshiper, set wandering in an unfamiliar land."   It seems this week I have been driven to write about my mother. It has happened more than once. Here she is again. Tapping my shoulder a reminder that she loved blue. There is the one and only photo of her where she wears a dress of blue. The photo was taken years and years ago. In the photo are my two nephews, my mother and myself.. The photo was taken in West Philadelphia. She sewed it. A light blue that now I wish to call "Indigo." I have much to learn about Indigo. It is easy to pick up on the author, Catherine E. Mckinley's, fervent love for the color. One day my son asked me my favorite color. I said, "I don't have one." I don't. Perhaps, I choose colors by mood. Today red  and tomorrow green,
Read more

First Chapter First Paragraph

Image
http://www.bibliophilebythesea.blogspot.com Closed until June 13     "Michael Hunter stared at the hand-lettered sign on the Gull Motel office, expelled a breath, and raked his fingers through his hair. Not the welcome he'd been expecting after a mind-rumbling thirty-six-hour cross-country drive to the Oregon coast. And where was he supposed to stay for the next three weeks, until the place opened again?"
Read more

First Chapter First Paragraph

Image
http://bibliophilebythesea.blogspot.com Every end is a new beginning. " He's not in there." "What do you mean he's not in there? I left him just a few hours ago. We have to get in there and check! Why is everybody just standing around/" Leo and my father didn't move.  What was wrong with them?I started running into the fire, but felt hands fastening onto my arms to hold me back. The Pecan Bayou Gazette building that stood proudly on Main Street for sixty-three years now began caving in on itself as the white hot flames overtook the structure." 
Read more