“Mixed with all the bitterness, after all, is a geographic expansiveness that suddenly stretches the thirty miles of Arkansas backroads into a trip around the world.”
-Thomas Beebee on “I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom”
a crossroads is a place you can’t help but come to
and can’t help but leave from
where Papa Legba sets up his diasporic shop
a man could tune a guitar here for a few years
and return to the world having convinced everyone
it’s only been a month
could live his whole life in the long stretches
between this town and that
you could walk from California to Des Moines to Chicago
and never outrun the lynch mob on your daddy’s heels
can’t ramble faster than the sun going down
a crossroads is a place to take all the can’ts in your life
and start dreaming of Ethiopia,
of the Philippines,
of a warm bed and a woman in it
and a husband who happens to be gone
sometimes a man plays the Blues so hard
he can will a place into existence
here, says poor Bob, somewhere to lay my head
here, says poor Bob, we’ll call this one America
