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Show ^o-good Plow Old Mizeray has a voice you must believe. Old Mizeray has a voice that could not lie. Old Mizeray, he whispers to deceive, To draw the trustin step to the edge, to die; But the voice, the voice is full and sweet with love. So Alvin, with his fingers deep in the loam, He wonders if this soil is good enough, And again he hears the river's whisperin hum: "I'll take you home." And now he doesn't know his north from south, And his fingers search but cannot find his mouth, And he can't remember what he came here for, Or if it even matters anymore. Only the sound of the river callin him, Only the whine of his fear, so high and thin, Only the taste of the sweat when he licks his lips, Only the tremblin of his fingertips, Their weaky grips. He stands, but he doesn't step, he daresn't walk, He puzzles for the key to this hidden lock, And he knows the key isn't in that hissin voice, He knows there's another way to make his choice. The soil he's lookin for, it's not for himself, It's for the plow he carried all so stealthy; He opens his burlap bag and lifts the ploxtf And sets it on the earth real soft and slow, And sees it glow. He sees it shine, that plow, it shines all gold, All yellow, and it gets too hot to hold, And around the plow the fog begins to clear, And the wind, it blows till the fog is gone from here, And he sees the soil is humusy and black Just as the unseen voice in the fog had said; And he sees the river lap the shore and smack And if he'd taken that step, now he'd be dead In the devil's sack. For Mizeray, he doesn't flow with wi£h water. In the riverbed's the stuff of night, The darkness reachin in at the edge of light, Awaitin for the step of a man unwary Where the flood can suck him down and bury Out in the lonely reaches of the sea Where the driftin dead look up through the night and see Forever out of reach the earth her dance, 0 heaven's daughter. |