My father made us kneel 

one fall, on Libby Hill, to harvest

out of Maine soil

all the spuds the picking machine

had left for us to glean.

For dinner one of us was sent

down to the dark cellar to put our bare 

hands into the black-hole 

bins––root around for seven 

potatoes––quick-back up the stairs 

to our mother’s boiling 

pot on the wood stove.

She mashed, hash-browned 

baked, boiled, buttered for us all

that one Maine winter we tried his dream

of farmer. 

He never took us to church––

still we praise 

his failure. How he fertilized 

by fresh manure, error and trial

how he put his trust in pails––

watered by hand. 

We will never find him again

in his garden. 

At his table in memory care 

he sips a carton of Kindergarten

milk, spoons a cup of vanilla pudding quick––

hungry as a man at his very first meal. How 

he praises his portion of ground

beef, next to his potato-white hill 

of flakes from a box. 

While we kneel to a bare bulb 

on a string you pull for a slim light, 

moldy air in our noses & root 

for potatoes with eyes.