Write On Edge: Turn It Up Challenge

Red Writing Hood this week allows 350 words for a piece inspired by a song.

The song is our choice.

I decided on a sea shanty, particularly the version as sung by The Johnson Girls (their website appeared to be malfunctioning, so I'm linking you to Wikipedia). Their second album, "On The Rocks" is phenomenal in my very humble opinion. The song is known by a couple names I think, but the one I know it by is "Noah Built The Ark".

update: found a youtube video: 2004 Chicago Maritime Festival - The Johnson Girls performing

Well, in all actuality, it's not a "sea" shanty as much as it is a Mississippi River spiritual. The type of spiritual that slaves sang in the fields to announce when and where Harriet Tubman was showing up.


So I offer this week: Martha Waiting

Martha harvested cotton until her fingers bled, then harvested more. She managed the whole day in the sweltering heat on minimal water and food, but now her growling stomach announced to the silent cotton field that she was fading fast. A prayer to God screamed in her mind, Please let me make it to sundown. Please.

The field master sauntered nearby on horseback. Martha didn’t flinch. She kept her head low and her back in the cramped position they were always in. The horse was too close for her liking and she itched to move elsewhere. She turned from the field master as naturally as the row of cotton would allow. Soon, the devil moved on with a muttered “pick it up, you”, leaving her to breathe in the scent of earth with a guilty relief. She was numb to the struggles of her fellows, wanting selfishly to be left alone. Let the devil focus on anyone else.

Over the bobbles of white bending in the late afternoon breeze drifted a livelier working cadence than she expected. She listened as the song gained momentum among her people, hoping for the coded news that would hint at her freedom.

She and her fellow slaves knew the code of course. Moses was just a name in the Good Book who lived long before Christ was born to save them all. What could Moses do now? Stretch his arm out from beyond the grave to smite the slaver? Her masters were as ignorant as they were cruel, an attribute that made her smile in her stolen private moments.

Song surrounded her with a blanket of hope. Noah built his ark on sandy land. Moses stood at the Red Sea shore. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? All them sinners were dead and gone. Yes, it was a lively tune.

Martha smiled. Moses wasn’t there yet, but soon. The Red Sea would part for her. She broke her silence and sang out loud with the others, the strength to ignore her hunger driving her onward to the next row of white gold.