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Mississippi 1955 Confessional (feat. T. R. Hummer)

from CAUGHT IN THE RHYTHM by Benjamin Boone

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lyrics

MISSISSIPPI 1955 CONFESSIONAL
by T.R. Hummer, published in The 18,000-Ton Olympic Dream (William Morrow,1990)

It would have been, I think, summer—it would have been August, I think, Somewhere near midway between solstice and equinox,
When the tractors move all daylight in mirages of their own thrown dust
And the farmhands come in the back gate at noon, empty, with jars in their hands. Imagine yourself a child with a fever, half delirious all that month,
And your sisters lift you in your white wooden chair, carry you to the edge Of a hayfield, set you down in hedgerow shade and leave you
While they go into woods to turn, you think, into swans—
They are so lovely, your sisters, in their white sundresses
That appear and disappear all afternoon among dark trunks of trees.
None of this ever happened. But remember the body heat of the wind
As it came from behind the tenant shack just there on the eastern border
Of your vision to touch you with its loving black hand? And there you are,
A white boy brought up believing the wind isn’t even human, the wind is happy
To live in its one wooden room with only newspaper on the walls
To keep out what this metaphor won’t now let me call the wind –
But don’t worry about that, your sisters in the woods are gathering
Beautiful fruit, you can hear it falling into their hands,
And the big pistons of the tractors drive thunderously home into cylinders Steel-bright as the future. You are five years old. What do you know?
Your fever is a European delicacy, it burns in your flesh like fate,
A sign from God, cynosure, mortmain, the intricate working out
Of history in the life of the chosen. O listen, white boy, the wind
Has a mythic question only you can answer: If all men were brothers,
Would you want your sister to marry one? Let me tell you, white boy, the wind
Is in the woods with its cornmeal and its black iron skillet,
It’s playing the blues harp in the poison oak where your youngest sister,
The one with hair so blonde you think it looks like a halo of rain,
Is about to take off her dress. You sit there dreaming your mild fever dream.
You tap your foot to the haybaler’s squared rhythms. They’ve dressed you in linen. From the woods where your sisters lie suddenly down, you burn, snow-white.
I’ve seen your face. I remember your name. I prophesy something you can’t imagine Is coming to kiss you. And you thought I was reaching back to you in words
To tell you something beautiful, like wind?

credits

from CAUGHT IN THE RHYTHM, released September 15, 2023
T.R. Hummer, narration
Benjamin Boone, alto saxophone
Hashem Assadullahi, soprano saxophone
Ben Monder, guitar
Eyal Maoz, guitar
Peter Brendler, bass
John Bishop, drums

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Benjamin Boone Fresno, California

Benjamin Boone is a jazz saxophonist, composer, professor, and U.S. Fulbright Scholar to Ireland (2022-23), Ghana (2017-18) and the Republic of Moldova (2006). His Origin Records album THE POETRY OF JAZZ was #3 "Best Album of 2018" in the 83rd Annual Downbeat Readers Poll and featured on NPR's All Things Considered, The Paris Review, and many others. Websites: BenjaminBoone.com & OriginArts.com ... more

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