Pastoral Heaven

Their blood runs through me, now

those men and women whose blistered hands

plowed fields with mules and sweat

and still owe more to the company store

than to God.

Hard, callous souls

and thin sheets to keep off the croup,

hungry children,

hungrier than those buried at the church

up the dirt road.

This land is your land

this land is not our land

for he lives even further on up the road

yet close enough for us to feel his want

Sugar cane, cotton

beans and greens

don’t amount to much this year

so we best gotta move on

Gotta move on

move on

so that their blood can flow

on and on

through me

now.

About the Author

Raymond Berthelot is the Parks Program Manager for the Louisiana Office of State Parks and is also an adjunct faculty member with Baton Rouge Community College. His work has appeared in The Elevation Review, the Carolina Quarterly, and DASH Literary Journal. A chapbook, “The Middle Ages,” is forthcoming.