An Acrostic Poem

      An acrostic is a poem or series of lines in which the initial letter of a line usually spells out something in sequence, like a name or motto. The following poem is a revision of one that was written many years ago, and published on Sept. 10th, 1966. It spells out "burial mound."
     It may've been sparked by what happened on the farm next to ours, located in the same section of land, back in Sac County, Iowa. The farm buildings were well inside the section, toward the northeast from our house. A railroad ran east of where these buildings were situated.
      It was from over in that direction, that we'd hear the train come through in the early evening. We called it the "Galloping Goose." It seems to me its sounds floating across the pastureland, fields and creek, went something like this: "a-hump, a-hump, a-hump" and its horn: "Derrrnt, derrrnt!" Perhaps these sounds gave the train its name.
       I remember jumping from the hay in the mow on that farm, slamming my teeth against my gum, cutting it. I still feel a little bump inside which may be a remnant of that long-ago occurrence.
      The acrostic here employs figures of speech, internal rhyme and alliteration. In the third line, you have overlapping alliterations: "...a haymow heap, and corn unhusked in crib to keep."

Before a barn, a home there stood, away from creek, away from wood.
Upon a piece of Iowa ground, the farm place stood mid fields around,
Recall I may, the haymow heap, and corn unhusked in crib to keep...
In time, its use as living space, no longer there was given place,
And shelters went afire, aflame a black-plumed pyre!
Lo, that which burnt asmoke, with char and ashes did ruin evoke.

Man made a hole...then a mound, o'er remnants that in earth were drowned.
O contemplate what's there interred, and voice might speak this gentle word:
Undone's a farm abode, to gain land, for seed be sowed...
No more a place is there, for family to grow and share...
Destroyed, 'dozed under and done... something lost, for something won...

John Riedell

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