Twenty right arms, sometimes together, but mostly not,
arc cutlasses in wide, irregular swings, nearly throwing themselves
off balance, back and forth, back and forth
shearing grass, knotted weeds from deep roots, spraying the shorn mulch,
like elephants hip shod on the treeless sun-baked plains
hurling their trunks high and flinging fistfuls of dust.
But these men are not at play. Each leans on a straight tree limb
shorn this morning as a staff to steady himself while he bends,
slicing close to the red soil without losing his toe.
The grass flies and in one corner of the field a cutlass snags. The laborer
lifts his machete. Draped across the blade a bright green snake struggles
to hold on to a fat toad lodged in his jaws, unable to let go.
By the edge of the road a man places
a worn whetstone in the dirt; the tsk of steel on stone.
Cape Coast, Ghana
Laban Carrick Hill was the author of more than thirty books, including the 2004 National Book Award Finalist Harlem Stomp!, which he researched for nearly a decade, and America Dreaming, which examines the legacy of the 1960s. He taught writing at Columbia University, Baruch College, St. Michael’s College and Pine Manor College in Massachusetts. He was also the cofounder and codirector of the Writers Project of Ghana, based in the US and Ghana. He passed away in 2021.
