Down to the Dust (audio added) Options

[RC James]

audio take on the poem


https://soundcloud.com/rc-james-user841120068/z0000227


Ain’ nuthin’ left here ‘cep
six uv us an’ dry stahks ‘a corn.
We’re up ta movin west
soon as I sort out the T-Ford.
Jenny, ma wife, is set to
have anuther to make us seven.
Got some taters an’ dry beans
in the root cellah, but not much
beyon’ that, relyin’ on the Lord
to provide a way through the storm.
Ah’m proud of the chilren, they got
a strenth beyon’ anything I known.
When jedgement day comes it won’
be no surprise, we alreddy been jedged
an’ been found holdin’ the strenth
of spirits who can survive culamity
and beyond, way beyond what we thought
we could hold in that handful of dust.

[RC James]

Syl - In the 1930's there was a great drought in the South Central states in the U.S. the area became known as the Dust Bowl and the people leaving the area - Dust Bowl Refugees. The poem is about such a family. Here's a song by Woody Guthrie, who came from Oklahoma:


Dust Bowl Refugee
Words and Music by Woody Guthrie

I'm a dust bowl refugee,
Just a dust bowl refugee,
From that dust bowl to the peach bowl,
Now that peach fuzz is a-killin' me.

'Cross the mountains to the sea,
Come the wife and kids and me.
It's a hot old dusty highway
For a dust bowl refugee.

Hard, it's always been that way,
Here today and on our way
Down that mountain, 'cross the desert,
Just a dust bowl refugee.

We are ramblers, so they say,
We are only here today,
Then we travel with the seasons,
We're the dust bowl refugees.

From the south land and the drought land,
Come the wife and kids and me,
And this old world is a hard world
For a dust bowl refugee.

Yes, we ramble and we roam
And the highway that's our home,
It's a never-ending highway
For a dust bowl refugee.

Yes, we wander and we work
In your crops and in your fruit,
Like the whirlwinds on the desert
That's the dust bowl refugees.

I'm a dust bowl refugee,
I'm a dust bowl refugee,
And I wonder will I always
Be a dust bowl refugee?