Poem Child Turned Into Man and Into Child Again
By Ted Kooser
He was a large man, says the size of his shoes
on a pile of broken dishes past the house;
a tall human being too, says the length of the bed
in an upstairs room; and a good, God-fearing man,
says the Bible with a broken back
on the flooring below the window, dusty with sun;
only not a human being for farming, say the fields
chaotic with boulders and the leaky barn.
A woman lived with him, says the sleeping room wall
papered with lilacs and the kitchen shelves
covered with oilcloth, and they had a child,
says the sandbox fabricated from a tractor tire.
Money was scarce, say the jars of plum preserves
and canned tomatoes sealed in the cellar hole.
And the winters cold, say the rags in the window frames.
It was lone here, says the narrow country road.
Something went wrong, says the empty house
in the weed-choked g. Stones in the fields
say he was not a farmer; the still-sealed jars
in the cellar say she left in a nervous haste.
And the child? Its toys are strewn in the yard
like branches later a tempest—a prophylactic cow,
a rusty tractor with a cleaved turn,
a doll in overalls. Something went incorrect, they say.
Ted Kooser, "Abased Farmhouse" from Sure Signs: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 1980 by Ted Kooser. Reprinted by permission of University of Pittsburgh Press.
Source: Sure Signs: New and Selected Poems (Zoland Books, 1980)
Poet Bio
Born in Iowa and a lifelong midwesterner currently residing in Nebraska, Ted Kooser portrays a rural lifestyle with concision and directness in his poetry. Kooser chose to work in the insurance concern and write on the side rather than pursue a career in academia. In 2004 Kooser was named Poet Laureate of the The states. See More Past This Poet
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Source: https://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/abandoned-farmhouse/
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