The Poetry Center at Smith College

Amanda Milam spent her Junior Year Abroad in Paris, studying at the Sorbonne, and graduated from Smith, cum laude, with a major in French literature and a minor in music. In 1999, she was awarded a Master of Music, from Mississippi College, magna cum laude, and went on to earn a Certificate in religious studies, Education for the Ministry from The University of the South (Sewanee) in 2003, and a Master of Theological Studies from Spring Hill College, Mobile, Alabama, in 2009. Currently, she is taking a Master of Arts in theology at Spring Hill College; her thesis will be on the doctrine of the Trinity in the works of Karl Rahner. She plans to pursue a PhD. at Vanderbilt University in systematic theology.

The Flooding of the Corn

Your river, your main source of life

Your identity as a people

That Father of Waters

Your life source overflows.

And in Egypt ,

There used to be abundance

Before the Israelites crossed the Red Sea

On dry land.

Your crops failed.

What would give life with rain and sun,

With hope and food and security

And nourishment

Falls under the curse of the rain

If the levees will not hold.

And there is the cotton,

And there is the corn,

And the cotton fails

And the corn fails

There is no japonica glistening

In gilded palaces:

Only the flooding of the corn

Mingled with the high river

That Father of Waters

That seethes and waxes and wanes

Like the moon reflecting the sun.

Your saving grace saved what could be saved

But your abundance is now lost.

With the flooding of the corn,

All that is left is the brown water

The lost cotton,

And your life.



	Amanda Milam spent her Junior Year Abroad in Paris, studying at the Sorbonne, and graduated from Smith, cum laude, with a major in French literature and a minor in music. In 1999, she was awarded a Master of Music, from Mississippi College, magna cum laude, and went on to earn a Certificate in religious studies, Education for the Ministry from The University of the South (Sewanee) in 2003, and a Master of Theological Studies from Spring Hill College, Mobile, Alabama, in 2009. Currently, she is taking a Master of Arts in theology at Spring Hill College; her thesis will be on the doctrine of the Trinity in the works of Karl Rahner. She plans to pursue a PhD. at Vanderbilt University in systematic theology.		The Flooding of the Corn Your river, your main source of life Your identity as a people That Father of Waters Your life source overflows. And in Egypt , There used to be abundance Before the Israelites crossed the Red Sea On dry land. Your crops failed. What would give life with rain and sun, With hope and food and security And nourishment Falls under the curse of the rain If the levees will not hold. And there is the cotton, And there is the corn, And the cotton fails And the corn fails There is no japonica glistening In gilded palaces: Only the flooding of the corn Mingled with the high river That Father of Waters That seethes and waxes and wanes Like the moon reflecting the sun. Your saving grace saved what could be saved But your abundance is now lost. With the flooding of the corn, All that is left is the brown water The lost cotton, And your life.