No sooner has Old Lucas concluded this peroration than the waters have indeed risen and swept him away, as calamity threatens. Meanwhile LeRoy Percy (a crustily genteel Michael Siberry), the town’s leading civic leader and landowner, is hosting a party. He, too, has a bent for poetry.

“You hear that cry in the distance?” he asks his loyal housekeeper, Queen (Harriett D. Foy). “It’s the river’s song. I remember it from back when I was a boy. It’s blues: long and full of longing. Just listen. He says he wants to put his song in my ear and flood me.”

“Forty days and nights it’s rained and rained hard,” he intones. “Them Mississippi’s tears: he still weepin’ for the arms of his daughter. And soon he will rise on a tide of them tears to embrace this land.”

No sooner has Old Lucas concluded this peroration than the waters have indeed risen and swept him away, as calamity threatens. Meanwhile LeRoy Percy (a crustily genteel Michael Siberry), the town’s leading civic leader and landowner, is hosting a party. He, too, has a bent for poetry.

“You hear that cry in the distance?” he asks his loyal housekeeper, Queen (Harriett D. Foy). “It’s the river’s song. I remember it from back when I was a boy. It’s blues: long and full of longing. Just listen. He says he wants to put his song in my ear and flood me.”

“Forty days and nights it’s rained and rained hard,” he intones. “Them Mississippi’s tears: he still weepin’ for the arms of his daughter. And soon he will rise on a tide of them tears to embrace this land.”

No sooner has Old Lucas concluded this peroration than the waters have indeed risen and swept him away, as calamity threatens. Meanwhile LeRoy Percy (a crustily genteel Michael Siberry), the town’s leading civic leader and landowner, is hosting a party. He, too, has a bent for poetry.

“You hear that cry in the distance?” he asks his loyal housekeeper, Queen (Harriett D. Foy). “It’s the river’s song. I remember it from back when I was a boy. It’s blues: long and full of longing. Just listen. He says he wants to put his song in my ear and flood me.”

“Forty days and nights it’s rained and rained hard,” he intones. “Them Mississippi’s tears: he still weepin’ for the arms of his daughter. And soon he will rise on a tide of them tears to embrace this land.”