We wait until the plants are dead.
That’s the time to harvest. First,
we pull away the straw. The dirt
below is damp and rich. We rake
with our fingers lightly then,
so as not to scrape the skin of
potatoes near the top. And oh,
that first glimpse of gold, how
we laugh and remind ourselves,
Go slow. After all, we’ve been
waiting all summer. But sometimes,
in the company of delight,
it’s hard to wait a second longer.
I want to say something to my son
about trust, about the way
that marvelous things sometimes
need the dark in order to grow. But
it is the quiet, now, that I love.
The silence of four hands moving
the dirt. Finn pulls another potato
from the earth, holds it up for me to see.
We shake our heads in what, awe?
Dumb wonder at our luck? And plunge
our hands deeper, deeper into the darkness.