Cotton, post defoliant. Kids in the south used to be kept out of school during picking season (this picture was taken September 2008). Today the crop is relieved of all its greenness so a machine can pick it. The defoliant stays in the soil, stays on the cotton bolls, stays in us.The Dirt has memory.
This muddy canal is just down the road from the cotton field pictured above. A lynching happened in 1937, off the old bridge, over this drainage ditch. I wonder if the water remembers too?
Happy Earth Day.
