A Poem from South Dakota Magazine

I had a version of this poem published in a recent issue of South Dakota Magazine

When We Were Quaint

I liked it when we were quaint

And now we’re like the rest.

When I was young

When we were quaint

There were towns

In our prairie state

Where English was the second language.

Where smorgasbords

After Sunday church

Would put the gourmets of today

To shame.

When we visited Lutheran friends,

I ate lefse and jam

And wished that I were Lutheran.

When we went to town

Car doors were locked

Only in harvest season

Or a backseat might be filled

With a neighbor’s overflow

Of rhubarb and zucchini.

In school we practiced

Writing letters in pen and ink

And found a distant relative

Who would be pleased to read.

“How are you?I am fine.”

I liked it when the cream floated

To the top of our milk

Bought from the farm next door.

For dessert we poured it

On my grandmother’s homemade bread

And sprinkled on white sugar.

Now we all have big TV’s.

Cell phones and computers.

We are no longer quaint.

We are homogenized.

We are pasteurized.

We were different then

But didn’t know we were.

And now we’ve seen the rest of the world.

We’ve become the rest of the world.

Sometimes we’re still a little quaint

But only in our memories