Welcome to The Tangled Branch!  Join us.

My Turnip Patch

General Poetry - post, comment, review, critique
User avatar
Tracy Mitchell
Posts: 3179
Joined: Sun Jan 07, 2018 3:58 pm

My Turnip Patch

Post by Tracy Mitchell » Sun Feb 07, 2021 3:29 pm

~

My Turnip Patch

My friend writes poems
indecipherable
glowing things which appear
like sterling brushed silver
crimson lights blink benignly
when all has gone quiet
in the dark of my turnip patch–
this spheroid space traveler
half-buried diagonally
metal-stressed and heat challenged
by a reentry dreamed of
by neither Thales nor Von Braun.

I wake restless, predawn
the air indecipherable, my head
glowing in anticipation–
I patter to my turnip patch,
feel the leaves, inhale the blush
of bewitched foliage, thank myself,
and take pride in the cultivating–
strong stems issuing robust, from
enchanted bulbs in the earth, like
the soil of night sky waning
and the given grace of light dawning.

If there is a way in, a door somewhere
an access panel, it may be in the savor
of turnips steamed in the waters of time
and indulgences, between lights blinking,
and the heat of the dream of the poem
my friend writes.


~

User avatar
Gyppo
Posts: 1338
Joined: Sat Mar 31, 2018 3:28 pm
Location: UK

Re: My Turnip Patch

Post by Gyppo » Sun Feb 07, 2021 5:14 pm

This has the feel of a dream sequence, a merging of tangible realities and intangible thoughts slipping and twining around the prosaic.

I shall read this more than once, just for the way it flows.  I rather fell in love with the following phrase...

'inhale the blush
of bewitched foliage'


Which rather sums up those rare moments when you can feel totally in touch with Nature.

Gyppo
I've been writing ever since I realised I could.  Storytelling since I started talking.  Poetry however comes and goes  ;-)

Matty11
Posts: 1585
Joined: Thu Jan 11, 2018 7:58 pm

Re: My Turnip Patch

Post by Matty11 » Mon Feb 08, 2021 3:05 am

Very much enjoyed T. My general view, as a reader, I can enjoy the surface of a poem without grasping meaning, though I expect meaning to be there. My preferred poem is one layered with meaning threaded with a nuance soundscape.

best

Phil

indar
Posts: 2908
Joined: Sun Jan 07, 2018 8:00 am

Re: My Turnip Patch

Post by indar » Mon Feb 08, 2021 10:15 am

What a magical write, it recaptures the sense of wonder Rachel Carson advocated so many years ago. I needed to be reminded of how simply it can be captured by a night time visit to the turnip patch :D

User avatar
Tracy Mitchell
Posts: 3179
Joined: Sun Jan 07, 2018 3:58 pm

Re: My Turnip Patch

Post by Tracy Mitchell » Mon Feb 08, 2021 10:45 am

Gyppo -- thanks for the reading and comments. Glad you like at least some of this.

Matty-- I wish I could write the poem you describe. Thanks for taking a look.

Indar -- Silent Spring -- what a different world that iconic book was born into.

Thank yous for the feedback.

Cheers.

T

indar
Posts: 2908
Joined: Sun Jan 07, 2018 8:00 am

Re: My Turnip Patch

Post by indar » Mon Feb 08, 2021 10:48 am


User avatar
Tracy Mitchell
Posts: 3179
Joined: Sun Jan 07, 2018 3:58 pm

Re: My Turnip Patch

Post by Tracy Mitchell » Mon Feb 08, 2021 11:52 am

I wasn't aware of that book -- what great reviews. I am currently reading Backpacking with the Saints by Beldon Lane. Similar import, I think, perhaps from a different direction.

User avatar
Mark
Posts: 586
Joined: Sun Jan 07, 2018 4:19 am

Re: My Turnip Patch

Post by Mark » Mon Feb 08, 2021 1:30 pm

I can't say I like turnips but I like the poem. It seems to have been artfully constructed and for some odd reason makes me think of a 1950s spaceship crash-landed in a turnip field. This raises questions if not eyebrows. What are the farmer's neighbors going to think? Will the turnips go up or down in value at harvest? And how is it that the farmer doesn't know about the decagonic spanner in his toolbox that matches the spaceship's ten-sided nuts? We can only ponder these elements.

In later years, a different crop spontaneously sprouted around it  and the holy crash site became known as The Worship Catnip Turnip Starship Church but unfortunately the rhyming nature of this only attracted poets blitzed on drugs who then tagged the spaceship with nonsensical graffiti. Aha. This then, is the official explanation of this weird poem.          


 

User avatar
Tracy Mitchell
Posts: 3179
Joined: Sun Jan 07, 2018 3:58 pm

Re: My Turnip Patch

Post by Tracy Mitchell » Thu Feb 11, 2021 9:42 am

In later years, a different crop spontaneously sprouted around it. . .

Image

Great reply Mark!

User avatar
Colm Roe
Posts: 2697
Joined: Sun Jan 07, 2018 12:45 am

Re: My Turnip Patch

Post by Colm Roe » Sat Feb 20, 2021 4:43 am

Nice poem Tracy.
You can't decipher your friend's poems but understand that you don't have to; some mysteries help us to appreciate the elements we can (and should) value.

I don't eat turnips. However, a few of them (and a few onions) boiled with lots of water in a big pot for two hours, then left to sit for 24 hours, makes a delicious stock for gravy.

Post Reply