RONNIE NEAL

Ephemeral Reflections: Fragments of Return (I)

Soft light echoes home,
Shards of glass hold time’s mother,
Again soil to Earth.

Journal, Haiku 1, 2023

Sweet potato

What patterns of shadow and light have birthed your form
Tear dropped and fuzzed
With a wispy poignant allegory

The remnant aroma of Earth
Soil speckled amongst your surface
What stories do they hold

Can they speak of your growth
Though we no longer walk hand in hand to the edge of home
Where spotted dogs with matted hair run,
With morning dewed eyes and ingenious beliefs

Usually we sat at the same table
In the same chairs
Purchased with just enough
To raise
A
Family.

Everyone’s thoughts on you
Their mouths salivating
cleansing the bumpy road of tongue
As we waited
And waited

And Mother, you, with your heavy–footed walk
and plastic–framed glasses which made your eyes too big
Had already prepared and stirred
the ingredients that would cover each plate

The window open to the patio deck
Letting fresh air in to be vibrated
To the same songs
which echoed at every cookout,
holiday dinner,
and birthday party we had

A generational playlist
Doo Doo Doo Doo... Doo
Doo Doo Doo Doo... Doo Doo... Doo Doo... Doo

1 stick of butter
1 1/4 cup of sugar
2 eggs
1/4 cup of milk
Some spice
and 4
medium
Sweet Potatoes

Your composition.

And If stand still enough
I can just get a faint whiff
of how your smell flowed throughout the kitchen

And if I close my eyes long enough
Giving space to drift away
I can hear her voice saying

‘boooy you better get yo hands off my sweet potato pie!
Yalls is over there’

Poem, 2022