Something in me rails against the word inevitable,
wants to root for underdogs and impossibilities.
But everything and everyone lets us down sometime,
and we meet the inevitability we would rather not know.
Last week, it was the potatoes. When we went
to harvest them, we found them abundant
in the sandy earth, but with their red skins pocked
with black scabs. That’s where the sorrow comes in.
Later I learn Black Scab is the common name
for the pathogen. There’s something almost comforting
in calling things as they are. I learn
that when peeling the potatoes, if I peel deep enough,
eventually the dark spots disappear.
And the potatoes taste delicious, somehow
more potato than the potatoes in the store.
The sorrow was just a surface thing, not like
the letter I received today outlining the betrayals
of a friend. How I longed for it to be a surface thing then—
something I could peel and find the core still good,
still full of nourishment, still unmarred.
How impossible it felt to call things as they are.
I longed for the potatoes to be like auguries,
omens that everything would be okay,
I wanted them to be portents that when we dig
there is treasure to be found, though
it may not look anything like we thought.