lento

Ottis Shirk, poet. According to the Muncie Evening Press, until his retirement in 1953, he was employed in the Ball State University maintenance department where he earned the title "campus poet". A Lento consists of two quatrains with a fixed rhyme scheme of abcb, defe. The second and forth lines of each stanza must rhyme.

Our Watermelon Patch

We used to have secluded,
Every summer on the farm,
A spot we kept protected
From the pilferer, who might harm
Or vandalize this valued plot,
No fence with gate to latch,
’Twas just a family secret -
Our watermelon patch.

I remember as a youngster
How I watched the melons grow
As the vines spread out like carpet
Covering every hill and row.
How the mammoth, green-striped melons
Seemed to nestle in the vines;
Each branch so closely matted
With another intertwines.

When it came the time for ripening,
I wondered how Dad knew;
He'd thump each melon briskly;
Then he'd thump his shoe.
He said, "It's just like music,
When they tune with tuning pipe;
If they sound alike, harmonical,
The melon then is ripe."

I still am fond of melons,
But the pleasure's no more mine,
To thump those tempting beauties
And pull them from the vine.
To me it seems I've never
Found any that would match
The sweetness of the melons
From our watermelon patch.