Hobnobbing with the Philosophers: Pumpkins in the Corn& Flutter By

Detail from “The School of Athens”
a fresco by Raphael (1483 – 1520)
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By Maik Strosahl

Years ago, while in training as a driver in Kentucky, I was put in a hotel for my trainer’s home time. Kali and the boys came down and surprised me with a visit and we took some time to visit Abraham Lincoln’s boyhood home at Knob Creek.
    Lincoln himself said his earliest memories were of living on a farm there. One memory he shared was of planting a garden with his sister Sarah. In one row, he would plant pumpkin seeds and the next she would sow the corn. The following night, a big rainstorm sent water rushing into the creek, flooding the fields and wiping out that garden.

    I was impressed with a modest tombstone that had marked the grave of Abe’s younger brother, Thomas Lincoln Jr—just a rock found on the property long after the family had left, with two letters to mark the passing of the infant.
    The Lincoln family is claimed by several states, as the family moved often. In each state, it seemed they left behind a part of themselves.
    The images and time spent with my family both recharged my batteries and left me inspired.
    I wrote the poem below in early 2020, but didn’t really know what to do with it, because there is not a lot of call for pieces about the youth of our 16th president. I found it still sitting on my phone, collecting silicon dust in the giga-archives.
    Perhaps it is time to share it here.

Pumpkins in the Corn

It was at Knob Creek
I first saw death,
my brother gone to blue.
Senior buried junior
under a jagged stone
marked only T.L.,
then left him
sleeping in the field
when he lost the farm
and had to leave Kentucky.

In Indiana we lost momma
to the milk sickness,
cattle finding the venom
of white snakeroot,
passing the trembles
through udders
to their young
and those unfortunate to
drink a warm glass.
Father changed,
took a widow as his second
with three in tow,
rented my labor to others
for every dime I could earn.

Sarah wed and died
birthing the stillborn son
of a man who couldn’t be bothered
to find her a doctor.

When wanderlust and greener fields
tempted father across the Wabash
with rich black soil,
we moved again,
deep into Illinois,
where I finally came of age and
left to make my own way.

All that I am or
ever hope to be I got,
not from my father
but from my mothers,
planting pumpkins in our corn
from farm to farm,
leaving pieces of ourselves behind
as the seasons turned,
the years of my youth
slowly fading away.

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It was on the grounds at Knob Creek that Kali, the boys and I did a lot of reading about the butterflies of Kentucky. We were encouraging both boys to practice reading the signs aloud because they told of butterflies I had never heard of and the flora that was planted there to attract them. It inspired the poem below, which lists the names of some of the species we saw.

Flutter By

Comma, comma,
Question mark,
Manic monarch,
Great spangled fritillary,
Little wood satyr

The days, the seasons,
another frenetic year
gone by into the blue and clouds
and I still sit here watching them flutter by,
wondering how many more ahead?
Years? Seasons? Days?

Little wood satyr,
Great spangled fritillary,
Yet another manic Monarch,
Comma, Comma,
Question mark

Copyright © 2023 by Maik Strosahl Michael E. Strosahl has focused on poetry for over twenty years, during which time he served a term as President of the Poetry Society of Indiana. He relocated to Jefferson City, Missouri, in 2018 and currently co-hosts a writers group there.