Editor’s note: Line spacing becomes distorted on a mobile device, so I recommend reading these poems and viewing the accompanying photos on a desktop computer. You can read Jianqing Zheng’s Rooted Questionnaire here.
Wes Carter Lake, Warren County, Mississippi, 1974. Photograph by William Ferris, William R. Ferris Collection, Southern Folklife Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, used by permission, with all rights reserved.
Reflection on the Lake
—William Ferris’s Wes Carter Lake, Warren County, Mississippi
It is a ripple of light and shadow
that deforms something
or nothing in the breeze.
Even the clouds floating leisurely
need a moment to immerse
their white robes in water.
Snapping shots by the lake,
I catch a moment of reflection
on the lake of the mind.
What's visual may not be
what's seen by the mind's eye.
In a sense, existence
is a state of nonexistence,
time is timeless,
and root is rootless.
The reflection on the lake
dims out when the sun dips
into its reflection, into darkness.
Lee Cooper and Joe Cooper, Kent’s Alley, Leland, Mississippi, 1974. Photograph by William Ferris, William R. Ferris Collection, Southern Folklife Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, used by permission, with all rights reserved.
Couple
—William Ferris’s Lee Cooper and Joe Cooper, Kent’s Alley, Leland, Mississippi
Love is molecules
joining atoms
for chemical reactions,
it’s plain life
like they hold hands
till old age,
it’s oneness
as staunch as their roots
gnarling together
like a delta blues song
dedicated to
wind and rain,
sun and moon,
and the flatland
underfoot.
William R. Ferris is the Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the senior associate director emeritus of its Center for the Study of the American South. The former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (1997-2001), Ferris has written or edited ten books, created fifteen documentary films, and his most recent work Voices of Mississippi won two Grammy Awards for Best Liner Notes and for Best Historical Album in 2019.