Yes I followed the plough
and have the feet for it too
wide wide feet for soft ploughed earth.
Someone had to follow the plough  when
we ploughed the tobacco,
to uncover the plants.
My youth. Spent hoeing or uncovering.
I know that smell
I know it, you hear, even though I
sit
in this well tempered house on these carefully displayed lands
I was there
I saw it pass away
"You boys ain't hopin'  me"
he'd say
and we'd slip away
and we didn't know
if we knew, would it be a better memory now
would that I had known that it would have been all gone, and
that smell of the soil,
the occasional arrowhead, the cold water of the creek would be all swallowed up and 
disappear
It was back there where those creeks come together,
the field and Passenger creek
with the spring water to drink that we,
it was there that we
cursed the work and wanted to go to
town.