Tobacco Road

 

Remembering the days of lean
Sometimes, nary a morsel to eat.
Life's lessons, taut and mean
But we'd not forgotten hope
and vowed not to be beat.

 

A cabin house in yonder hollow
We folks struggled hard everyday.
Stripping tobacco might bring a dollar
Cause we'd not forgotten hope
and fought to find a way.

 

We toiled in noon day sun crop fields
with sweat on brow,
and dreams of getting out
Praying oh Lord,give abundant yields
We'd not forgotten hope
and trusted Him,without doubt.

 

Winter's cold cruel chilly nights,
came and went away
Seasons passed, and years flew by
and God cut us some slack in the rope.
Those lean days turned ,bright and gay
Because we had never Forgotten Hope.

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

this is so real....delivered in such wonderfully poetic way with its rhyme and near rhyme....
and letting us know when it gets the worst, hope is still in the air, because once we are on the bottom, the only way to go from there is up...
Winter in life is temporary...and our springs will lighten our heavy load.
j.

[Fran Marie]

Hi Jacob..yes that's true..better days coming when hope is alive..thanks for reading..I so appreciate your words on my poetry;

[Norma J. Jessee]

This does bring back some memories. I remember the tobacco fields and the cutting of the tobacco. and the long lines in front of the warehouse close to Christmas. We didn't raise tobacco but most of our neighbors did. That's where the Christmas money often came from. My Uncle grew tobacco and paid bills off and somehow they had their house payments set up to where they paid when they got tobacco money.You know you were talking about the lean years, we didn't have much maybe I should say nothing, we were about as poor as poor could be but the odd part is we were happy. I remember there were days we went to bed hungry and the cold morning standing beside a heating stove with our hands held close to it to get warm and having to run outside to the bathroom at what felt like 20 below but we were happy. It was normal for us. We knew nothing else. Strange but I even miss those days. There were a lot of happy memories. Thank you for bringing some of them back.

[Emily B]

You bring back the smell of tobacco hanging in the barn and the stripping room with the smell of woodsmoke in the corner cause flannel shirts even quilted ones aren't enough to keep you warm. Your images evoked lots of memories.