Sue Klausmeyer, the conductor of the UNC Women's Glee Club bestowed upon me a great honor: an invitation to tour with the UNC Combined Glee Clubs on their Winter Tour this year. We went to Charlotte, Gastonia, Asheboro, ending up in Charleston Thursday, January 5 through Monday, January 9. It was a great experience. I really enjoyed being a part of the program and also hearing their wonderful music. And I got a song out of the experience. Driving through the countryside I was struck by all the fields of cotton. So, I wrote a song about cotton. Did you know that the cotton blossom is white the first day of its bloom but by the second day it has turned red; the third day it falls off the plant. Such is life . . .
Cotton
Traveling home on 17 upon the coastal plain
Looks like we’re gonna get the day’s predicted rain
Earth is stripped of color leaving gray and ruddy brown
Fields of naked cotton stalks between old Southern towns
In days gone by, a long-ways back, when red dirt stained my feed
I’d sit among the tidy rows not mindful of the heat
Though I’d watch intently I never could discern
The moment when from white to red the cotton blossom turned
There’s a part of me that misses life dependent on the soil
There are mysteries and meanings mixed up in the sweat and toil
And how is it that I’m old now, when did that come to be?
From creamy white to bloody red, how did I fail to see?
Cotton, first day white
Next day red
Then it shrivels up
That’s what the children said about cotton
Talking ‘bout cotton