Poet’s Corner: Ode to a Stump Farm 2

15 September 2026

(22 January 2016) Last time we looked at the introductory sections of the title poem, “Ode to a Stump Farm.” We noted Keats’ influence, inspiring us to use the broken mirror image. This week we share the beginning of the third section:

III.
A shard reflecting–
first visit with intentions
fleeing
clapboard & asphalt
tyranny
embracing natural harmony, solitude.

Way paved with ice
pine trees encroaching
over-arching constricting
the road, a cold green tunnel.
Trudging the path snow
crunching
walking on loose stone
covering the alley
behind
our nearly former home.

I learned how great-grandpa Rice
must have felt
when, nearly a century before,
he pushed, a wheelbarrow
containing all his possessions,
thirty miles
over trackless mountains.

Here I begin to focus on that first trip we made to the homestead, after the decision had been made to move there, and the details I recall, details that made a lasting impression on a teenager, coming from a town with its rigid grid system of streets and sidewalks, and the unspoken rules for keeping one’s house and yard up to a certain standard. How strange it was to go from all those squares and straight streets, to a dirt road that meandered through the forest, moving with the land instead of moving the land to fit the grid. Also, how overgrown it was, only a tunnel through the forest. As we moved deeper into the forest, there soon came a point where the remaining snow prevented us from driving, and we had to walk the rest of the way, crunching across the snow that seemed to me like the gravel in the alley next to our house. In that moment, I could imagine how my great-grandfather must have felt in a time when there were no roads or highways, and the story is that he pushed a wheelbarrow filled with all his possessions from Usk, WA, the closest town at the time, over the mountains to the land he had been given by the Homestead Act. More on Thursday from this poem. Until then, get your own copy of this collection from ebook retailers. Good reading!