Seed Potato: Novena Day Three

Seed Potato:

Novena: Day Three

We’re trying to decipher our scars.  Do we exist?  Yes.

                                                                                                Juan Felipe Herrera

                                                                                                Nuclear Green Light

The children with their dirty hands,

they cup the split seed

                potato and cast it

                like a spell

                into the furrow.  Face up

                it is a moon cooling to its own 

                burial in the ground, the brown
                and broken rocky ground.  Face down

                it is Quasimodo on his bell, deaf

                to every sound feel of even

                the wind, but it’s in his face

                while he sways and maybe the rain

                is made today just for him

                exclusive, and for it he’ll sit
                still

                while the earth spins at its own

                speed, while it all blows

                with everything else is nose down

                like a now drying out old

                potato that's patient to be
                covered and harrowed high.

And while it all happens

in the dark, the eyes’ holes

going closed forever
with the sprout, in

the dimple of it each one

will live in its kin: when

                the children come back
                in the fall
                to grasp
                just what’s been done

                to the dead and dying stem

                an leaves, (they missed the white and butter

                                yellow blossoms)

                the roots snap and pull like a tooth

                and oh the new, new, the recovery:

                                                and cold as stones and holding on

                                                a whole half dozen

                                                are cupped like their mother was

                                                                but some are flowing over

                                                                and some are runts with twins

                                                all brushed off and touched

                                                against the apple cheeked minions

                                or only two

                                plus the old man

                                who those few months ago

                                                whistled at the sat bushel basket

                                                and repaired

                                                the long winter

                                                cutting each seed

                                                between the eyes

                                                                shriveled and wrinkled

                                                                and nearly dried:

listen: what is asked

                                is given.  Isn’t that scripture?

                                                Isn’t that just why miracles

                                                are cast

                                                like dice

                                                into the long row on row days to come

                                                                to wait in the dark

                                                                like a penitent

                                                                and let themselves be

                                                                taken
                                                                and like it or not

                                                                shoved up through into the light?

                                               

Where else, tell me,

when you’re looking

for where the mother was cut

and cut will you find other

or ever better

food?