Poet’s Corner: Ode to a Stump Farm 6

26 September 2026

(26 February 2016) Welcome back! We return with another piece from the title poem of our collection, “Ode to a Stump Farm.” Returning to the original image of shattered fragments of memory, we begin this next section with the memory of returning there years later, long after all had left, the place occupied by renters.

I lift another piece, recent
clear,
last visit two decades later, road
neglected,
rutted from spring
forlorn,
fences falling down,
no blue Fordson tractor,
red Studebaker farm truck.
Bales of hay should be stacked
next to the empty woodshed–
winter feed for Dad’s appaloosa
horse named Foxfire,
not chomping the grass
obscuring the pond.

We paint with broad strokes, focusing on all that had changed, with particular interest in what was missing–the tractor, the truck, the hay, the woodshed, and the horse. It is an interesting exercise in how we can remember things, juxtaposing these memories over what our eyes now see; it further illustrates how our world is in a constant state of flux: nothing remains the same, us least of all. We are nostalgic by nature, desiring to go back to the way things were (setting aside the faulty nature of our memory!) at some previous, supposedly better time, but we can never go back, trapped in time, the clock moving inexorably forward. More next week from this poem, moving closer to its conclusion. Get this collection from your favorite ebook store, or in print from the link provided. Good reading!