The Year of the Famine

When the iron works was shutting down 
and you couldn’t buy a sack of flour 
in Cedar Valley at any price 
(grasshoppers we had—but no gulls), 
the Lord sent mushrooms. 

Outside the town they umbrellaed 
on the black creek bank 
and in scant shade— 
everywhere the benign toadstools. 
Mornings we gathered them—always enough.
For Sunday dinner a little flour 
to thicken the juice, and pigweed greens. 

In the fall an abundance of 
honeydew fell on the willows. 
We fetched washtubs and other vessels 
and rinsed the branches in water 
and it boiled down 
to the beautifullest syrup I ever tasted. 

In the year of the famine, 1856.