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
Poem, 2022
© Ronnie Neal
Snippet out of Sweet Potato, poetry film
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
Poem, 2022
© Ronnie Neal
Snippet out of Sweet Potato, poetry film