The Delta Moans

This is a powerful poem!

Thanks for posting to Just Poetry!

Oh My, Spencer this was delightful and so full of heart! My roots are southern and I could relate to so much of this. My mouth watered at the thought of homemade cornbread baked in an old iron skillet. I could practically spell the river in the distance. Fabulous piece, I enjoyed this so much!

I enjoyed this as well.
Thank you for sharing it with us.

This is a beautiful memory to share with us! Thank you!

Z'

Great poem and flood of thoughts/memories. My father-in-law JUST recently shared some reflections of the annual pilgrimage from Georgia to Florida when he was a small child. The folks worked the groves in Florida until hurricane season and then headed back to small shanty places in Georgia to work. One year when he was 2 or 3, he recalled that due to all of the frantic activity of missing a big storm he actually got lost in Florida for 2 days. Another sharecropping family simply picked him up and reunited him with his people BACK in Georgia.

Thanks now I am hungry. Good terse descriptive lines

I have chosen your poem to be a featured article in my group, Just Poetry!

Thanks for sharing your talent with my group!

memories. I saw the movie "Soul Food" for the first time last week. You evoked even more delicious memories.

Thank you so much, Michelle.

My pleasure, Sheila.

Great southern ode to grandma and her life's journey...beautiful. So beautiful.

Appreciate your passion, Apryl. I too can feel the emotions and often smell the river.

Glad to see you, Terry. Thanks much.

Yes, Jim, the blues came from powerful surroundings with lots of emotional strife.

Thanks, Z, the floods caused me to write a lot of these.

Wow the memories this piece brings. Beautifully written .. truly enjoyed.

My mouth waters! Yum and so much more - nice poem!

Joan, tho that is a frightenng story I bet it was common. There are so many emotions from life in the delta.
Thanks much.

Terry, food was often one of the rare comforts.

Thank you, Sheila.

I'm smiling, Nyota.

Patricia, grandma still influences me after all the years she's been gone.

And I yours, Liz.

Finally visited Mississippi a couple months ago, know where this delta actually is. You know the notes, sir.

Spencer T...I loved this.
I still have my grandma's iron skillet. Some magic in that pan. It's a big'un...as we were a lot of children, growing up. Now, I have other iron skillets to pass down to my kids, but I will only cook "her foods" in her skillet. I remember when she taught me how to "season" a skillet so it would last forever. Gran's recipies (never written down) always turn out right, But she used it for so much. Ham n' Beans, cornbread, pineapple upside down cake (I had to smile when I read Hamhocks, and neckbones...did she do oxtail soup?) and she would even make baking soda biscuits in it. They had a different kind of balance in her generation. If she cooked meat in it once, then she would cook a bread/cake thing in it next. and I can feel her little bitty powerful body behind me when I pull that pan out of the oven. She was not even five foot tall, but at 79 would jump, like a 'roo, up into a chair to shake her finger in our faces. She was one tough cookie, and we loved her forever. They never pass, as long as we keep them close.
Thank you, sir, for posting this on Missouri Gatherites. A lovely, warm kitchen, family kind of poem.
Blessed be to you and yours...
Wilka

You have such a
wonderful way with words!
I loved this one, Spencer.

powerful words!

Ahh yes, to have some of those collards, with some of that chicken, beans with ham hocks, and some of that corn bread with a glass of sweet tea. Yes honey. I know it all so well. Your writing evokes memories so dear to my heart and my having lived in the south. I could almost smell the cooking and boy oh boy am I ever craving those collards now! ;)

Very powerful indeed. Sweet Potato Pie and Southern Fried Catfish (in corn meal batter of course) brings back some very fond memories of my friend Jimmy Spinx cooking. In addition to that, he had the best barbecue sauce recipe around!

So many fond memories come with this, Spencer. I love the way it evokes such nostalgic thoughts in me.

This is one of my favorites! I read it out loud and it's got that funky, soulful flow. And I'm not exaggerating when I say I had to swallow a few times, it does make my mouth water!

Lydia is right! Reading it out loud really makes it come to life wonderfully!

I like the sound of the word "delta", it flows so beautifully off the tongue, like that sweet potato pie! Excellent writing!

Oh my I am so hungry my food better arrive soon or I may faint

I tasted every bit of all that! I just cannot praise you enough! You can write you BE-hind off! :)