Dianna MacKinnon Henning 

Van Gogh’s The Potato Eaters

The tea pourer’s left hand snores on her lap.

One finger strangely points to the floor
as though downward
were the only refuge for the roughly defined.
 
Light from a hanging lantern
seeps onto the cutlery
and potato platter.
 
Which of them will snare
that luminescence,
set her fork underneath the platter’s rim
to lick the tabletop?
 
                        **
 
There’s the farmer’s forking them from his potato patch,
soaking and washing each one
before the sacker hefts them into a cart
he’ll pull to market, and where someone will tell him

Sir Walter Raleigh introduced
potatoes to Ireland,
that his friends favor the apple potato
due to its durability,
but actually, Spain made the first potato
introduction to Ireland.
 
And don’t we all favor dependable returns,
no scabs, weevils or potato eels
harming our white chestnuts?
 

                        **

So, let’s not forget
that without potatoes
each of us is
a bit poorer,
 
our plates but a hand mirror
in the grasp of
the infinite.
 
                        **
 
Who has known moments
inside earth and slept as potatoes sleep
mute at the breast of depth?
 
Even the earth worm knows the richness
of tubers cloaked in their burqas,
how all things wrap into something for comfort.
 

Van Gogh Museum

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