ANGELLE MCDOUGALL

Regeneration

Peering into the root-cellar bin
of months-old potatoes
eyes of my ancestors stare
back at me. Clumps of dried

mud from last fall’s harvest
cling to now-darkened skin
I brush them away
release motes that float
through the air like mist

in sunshine. The smell of burned leaves
piled on damp lawn
fills my mouth with smoke and ash.
Their spotted skins

wrinkled and slack with age
covered in knobbly buds—seeds
of the seeds of the seeds planted
by my foremothers. Each autumn

new tubers are harvested, stored
in the cool downstairs.
Throughout the year they are baked
boiled, fried, sliced and diced. In spring

the musty spuds at the bottom
are dissected, their thorny eyes
planted, hilled, watered, weeded
and nurtured, then ripped

from the ground to be harvested
and consumed again. A cycle
of burial, unearthing and reburial.
The seeds planted today direct descendants
of those planted by my grandmother

and her mother, years ago. When I pull
a plant from the hard ground, the offspring
bunch together, like a row of names
on the family tree.