JEAN TOOMER
Reading edition
Jean Toomer was born in Washington, D. C., in 1894. He has since lived there and in New York, receiving his education mainly in these cities. Having traveled over a good part of America, experiencing varied aspects of its life and studying the elements of contemporary problems, in 1918 in the midst of a general interest in art, he gradually centered on that of literature. There followed a four year period devoted entirely to writing, the results of which were first given printed form by The Double Dealer of New Orleans. And soon thereafter, sketches, poems, short stories, and critical reviews began appearing in Broom, The Crisis, The Dial, The Liberator, The Little Review, Opportunity, etc. These brought him in contact with a literary and artistic group in New York composed of such men as Waldo Frank, Alfred Steiglitz, Paul Rosenfeld, Gorham B. Munson, and others. With these he has been associated in the effort to articulate the diverse significances of America. In 1923 his first book, Cane, was published by Boni and Liveright, New York.
REAPERS
Black reapers with the sound of steel on stones Are sharpening scythes. I see them place the hones In their hip-pockets as a thing that’s done, And start their silent swinging, one by one. Black horses drive a mower through the weeds, And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds, His belly close to ground. I see the blade, Blood-stained, continue cutting weeds and shade.
EVENING SONG
Full moon rising on the waters of my heart, Lakes and moon and fires, Cloine tires, Holding her lips apart. Promises of slumber leaving shore to charm the moon, Miracle made vesper-keeps, Cloine sleeps, And I’ll be sleeping soon. Cloine, curled like the sleepy waters where the moon-waves start, Radiant, resplendently she gleams, Cloine dreams, Lips pressed against my heart.
GEORGIA DUSK
The sky, lazily disdaining to pursue The setting sun, too indolent to hold A lengthened tournament for flashing gold, Passively darkens for night’s barbecue, A feast of moon and men and barking hounds, An orgy for some genius of the South With blood-hot eyes and cane-lipped scented mouth, Surprised in making folk-songs from soul sounds. The sawmill blows its whistle, buzz-saws stop, And silence breaks the bud of knoll and hill, Soft settling pollen where plowed lands fulfill Their early promise of bumper crop. Smoke from the pyramidal sawdust pile Curls up, blue ghosts of trees, tarrying low Where only chips and stumps are left to show The solid proof of former domicile. Meanwhile, the men, with vestiges of pomp, Race memories of king and caravan, High-priests, an ostrich, and a juju-man, Go singing through the footpaths of the swamp. Their voices rise ... the pine trees are guitars, Strumming, pine-needles fall like sheets of rain ... Their voices rise ... the chorus of the cane Is caroling a vesper to the stars ... O singers, resinous and soft your songs Above the sacred whisper of the pines, Give virgin lips to cornfield concubines, Bring dreams of Christ to dusky cane-lipped throngs.
SONG OF THE SON
Pour O pour that parting soul in song, O pour it in the sawdust glow of night, Into the velvet pine-smoke air to-night, And let the valley carry it along. And let the valley carry it along. O land and soil, red soil and sweet-gum tree, So scant of grass, so profligate of pines, Now just before an epoch’s sun declines, Thy son, in time, I have returned to thee, Thy son, I have in time returned to thee. In time, for though the sun is setting on A song-lit race of slaves, it has not set; Though late, O soil, it is not too late yet To catch thy plaintive soul, leaving, soon gone, Leaving, to catch thy plaintive soul soon gone. O Negro slaves, dark purple ripened plums, Squeezed, and bursting in the pine-wood air, Passing, before they stripped the old tree bare One plum was saved for me, one seed becomes An everlasting song, a singing tree, Caroling softly souls of slavery, What they were, and what they are to me, Caroling softly souls of slavery.
COTTON SONG
Come, brother, come. Let’s lift it; Come now, hewit! roll away! Shackles fall upon the Judgment Day But let’s not wait for it. God’s body’s got a soul, Bodies like to roll the soul, Can’t blame God if we don’t roll, Come, brother, roll, roll! Cotton bales are the fleecy way Weary sinner’s bare feet trod, Softly, softly to the throne of God, “We ain’t agwine t’ wait until th’ Judgment Day! Nassur; nassur, Hump. Eoho, eoho, roll away! We ain’t agwine t’ wait until th’ Judgment Day!” God’s body’s got a soul, Bodies like to roll the soul, Can’t blame God if we don’t roll, Come, brother, roll, roll!
FACE
Hair— silver-gray, like streams of stars, Brows— recurved canoes quivered by the ripples blown by pain, Her eyes—mist of tears condensing on the flesh below And her channeled muscles are cluster grapes of sorrow purple in the evening sun nearly ripe for worms.
NOVEMBER COTTON FLOWER
Boll-weevil’s coming, and the winter’s cold, Made cotton-stalks look rusty, seasons old, And cotton, scarce as any southern snow, Was vanishing; the branch, so pinched and slow, Failed in its function as the autumn rake; Drouth fighting soil had caused the soil to take All water from the streams; dead birds were found In wells a hundred feet below the ground— Such was the season when the flower bloomed. Old folks were startled, and it soon assumed Significance. Superstition saw Something it had never seen before: Brown eyes that loved without a trace of fear, Beauty so sudden for that time of year.