Two Poems by Karly Randolph Pitman

Room at the Inn

         “There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americans.”
         — from a speech given by Teddy Roosevelt in 1915 *

My great grandfather was a coal miner
in the Pennsylvania mountains. When
the miners went on strike, they didn’t eat.
The Red Cross brought my great grandmother
rice and butter which she buried in the yard.
If they’d brought her flour and olive oil
she could have cooked a feast. At Ellis Island
Zaccagnini become Zack. At the grammar school
Damasiewicz became Demser. At the Ford
Motor Company Poles and Slovaks were told
to abandon their traditional clothing in a giant pot.
They came out reborn, dressed in suits
and carrying American flags. Today a woman
in a worn head scarf stands at the stoplight,
her daughter in a stroller beside her. Another
daughter hides her face from the too fast traffic.
Between her halting English and my broken Spanish
we say hello. As I hand her the cash in my wallet
I picture the women who brought my grandparents rice.
Whatever kindness was given to them, I pray,
shower it on this family. Let them know
there is welcome in this land.

* The quote from Teddy Roosevelt and the story of the melting pot at the Ford plant come from David Dean’s essay, Roots Deeper than Whiteness. Thank you, David.

* 

Growing Sweet Potatoes

It was the first time we’d planted sweet potatoes –
slips of flesh with eyes and fingers, tiny beings
of promise. We planted and prayed for just enough
sun, just enough wet, just enough microbe to sprout
our seeds into harvest. It rained and then it stopped.

It stopped for one hundred days and the sun baked
the earth brown. It stayed hot and became hotter.
The plants wilted and I dreamt they cried for rain.
We decided: what do we let die? What do we save?
If the potatoes die we can buy them at the store.

But I wanted the potatoes to thrive – to create
something useful and good, something as sturdy
as a potato. So I prayed for rain. I sang to the vines.
And months later, when it rained, I stood in my yard
and let the water pour down my face – planted
like the potato, watered like the vine, open in my thirst.

Today we dug into the warm earth searching
for pink orbs. We found five perfect potatoes
and dozens of silvery roots no thicker than a pencil.
I can’t bear to throw any of them away. Six months
of toil and six months of hope that I can’t let go to waste.

Who am I to say the harvest is a failure? That more
should have grown in dusty soil? Who am I to say
that I, sweet potato vine, rain and soil, humus
and hot sun, should be any more than I am now?

*

Karly Randolph Pitman is a writer, teacher, poet, presenter, and mental health facilitator who helps people nurture a more compassionate relationship with their struggles. She’s the founder of Growing Humankindness, a gentle approach towards overeating, writes a reader supported poetry newsletter, O Nobly Born, and offers writing and mindfulness workshops to nurture self awareness and self compassion. She lives in Austin, Texas where she’s cared for the underbelly of long covid and autoimmune illness for the past five years. Her journeys through depression and illness continue to soften, teach and open her. In all she remains in awe of the human heart.