The Old Potato House
Russets,
Mountains,
Katahdins and
Kennebecs
picked and tossed
into wooden barrels
too large to carry
children off school
pickers for a month
to help
bring in the harvest
trucks full of
potato barrels
rumbling up
to the potato house
to drop off their
starchy treasure
white gold
in brown dirt
the barns are empty
and cave in
for lack of
need
metal and motors
do the job of
hands and wood
and I am sad
when I can’t find
the
potato house
You are an amazing poet. I could feel the value and yearning for the potato house. Beautiful!
ReplyDeleteLove "starchy treasure" and "white gold" but the telling words are at the end. So sad and nostalgic. You know with a few more words, or a refrain, this could be a folk tune. Nice Donna. Again, best wishes on the madness poem!
ReplyDeleteIt's great how you bring us through history and then with such a shift in emotion. I could get a sense of the pride in the work and now it just feels so empty. Beautiful poem. Makes me want to find out more about the potato house!
ReplyDeleteAt the beginning you made me think of when we were allowed time off school to help pick fruit crops. Then I felt your sadness at how time can try to erase the evidence of experiences - memories are so important
ReplyDeleteI loved the journey back in time and then to the present.
ReplyDeleteAnother lovely homage to times past - thse lines really stood out for me:
ReplyDeletetheir
starchy treasure
white gold
in brown dirt
...and thank you for that picture!
Never heard of potatoe houses, but it sounds like it use to be a busy place. I always look at old houses/barns and wonder why no one kept them going. So much history. Thanks for sharing a time gone by.
ReplyDeleteI have enjoyed reading your posts Donna. (I have had trouble leaving comments.) You always find an interesting way to write about your world. Just like this. I have never known of a Potato house but have the whole history in your poem. Keep writing.
ReplyDeleteEach word carrying so much weight, and the images so haunting and visual.
ReplyDeleteThe photograph is a nice companion to the poem.
( Thank you for the type face. I am delighted to read your work)
There are few things I love more than potatoes. Very few. This poem might be one of them.
ReplyDeleteI love how you have listed the names of the kinds of potatoes.
ReplyDeleteI love this. Your poem brought back a memory from my childhood. I love when I read a piece of writing and it does that. Thank you.
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