Mark Thalman

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Selected Poems

Voyager Photograph

Attending Church, Age 3

The Ants

Monsieur Pedreau's Garden

Short Term Memory Loss

The Peasant Dance

Barn Owl in Churchyard

Venice by Early Morning

Opening the Cabin

Winter Storm

Hanging Up the Spurs

Oregon Rain

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               MONSIEUR PERDREAU’S GARDEN
      
    
     
               Near dawn, a pheasant in the corn field crows.
               Maurice, five years old, gets up and goes
               with his grandfather to pick pommes de terre
               they planted ten weeks ago.
                
               Using only their hands, the delicately dig
               through loose soil.  The small potatoes gleam
               like pale mice in the dark ground.

               The boy jumps up and down when he realizes
               how many they have found.  All the while,
               reciting what his grandfather told him,
               “You have to plant one to get some.”
 
 
 
               "Monsieur Perdreau's Garden" published in Pearl.
 
 

              Email mark@markthalman.com