On Reading Poetry

Snow white, you
sit in the shade
and sip from your cup,
a Southern belle, playing
an elegant game of tea party,
still a blank slate
after two score years,
while I am colored,
the sun tanning me
the shade of Ceylon tea
with added milk.

Here in Smith's fields, I toil,
plowing the rich, red soil,
lines of tilled earth
far as the eye can see,
first uncovering a body,
then a seed, then a fruit
of this new world's garden,
a pomme de terre.
While you watch from afar,
I pocket it for myself,
imagining it to someday
take root
in my mind.

This is the reason why
you are just a fairy tale,
while I give a master piece of mind.

Notes:

(1) "Smith" here is a reference, among other things, to the explorer John Smith (1580-1631).

(2) Pomme de terre is French for potatoes, and it literally means "apple of the earth".

(3) The error in the last line of the poem is deliberate.