Alan Lomax

THE TRUTH ABOUT LEVEES

The levee is always close by
A great, groaning serpent
Running through woods, swamp, farm and city
It is the distinctive spiritual and cultural feature
Of the Gulf Coast landscape

Realize that these huge dikes were erected
By People Power
Black muleskinners urging on their teams
With wild work calls and African melodies
Ancient Black Magic Songs built these levees

Before the levees
Ancestors of the Indigenous Ones raised mounds
To which they retreated
In times of high water

In the 19th Century
Planters and Industrialists piled up small embankments
Against the floods
Giving way in the 1870's and 1880's
To newly-empowered Levee Boards

Inconceivable but true
These huge early earthworks were built up
One load at a time
By Barrow Men, Hoppers and Convict Gangs
Leased, driven and dumped on

Working slips and wheelers
Dead Beat, Dead Broke, DirtMen
Hitching Around
Stomping the ground
Of Levee Camps, Railroad Fills, Canals and Dams

Adapted from Alan Lomax's
LAND WHERE THE BLUES BEGAN

1993