That Old Field of Cotton

The old black man plowed the ground in that baking sun And sang all those old gospel songs The rows were straight as an arrow all through the field As I knew this was where his heart belongs He was just a share cropper and a mighty fine man And I never saw him angry or raging mad All I ever heard was the songs he was singing Plowing that mule in that field owned by my dad He rested at the end of row number two And drank from the water jar I brought He nodded his satisfaction, then turned that mule around As old Julep did the best at what she was taught When he wasn’t plowing he and I sometime a go fishing As he’d always caught tenfold more than me He’d laugh when I shook my sweating head And say while laughing, “it be’s what it be’s.” Every year the old man would be seen in the old field It seemed to be twenty acres or more And his wife always waved as he neared their house As she rocked in the shade close to the front door One day he didn’t make it to the field to plow again And my heart was saddened to the core He had passed in the night into his final rest And I knew that those songs I would hear no more It’s been thirty years since I was down on the farm But I went back just yesterday The fields are all grown up, seems no one planted there And my heart was broken and I couldn’t stay I went back to the city back to the grit and grime But I think of those days long gone but not forgotten And I see the old man smiling as he’s out plowing And soon all that white in that big field of cotton