The Knowledge of Potatoes

[Cliff Sombito]

Hi there, good day everyone. This poem is called The Knowledge of Potatoes. Does this poem make any sense?

Here goes:

My roots is in the soil of the East;
my head was formed in the West;
my tail swats the flies in the north;
my body is the empire of the south.
What am I,
you can’t see with your eye;
I’m somewhere behind your mind,
and a shovel is what you need to find
to dig me up where I sleep.
In the eyes of wisdom I'm a heap
of gold, but to foolish people
I'm nothing but the dung of a beetle.
So come and seek me if you want
only when you've a heart to grow a plant.

[lemur]

It's in the form of a riddle; is there a correct answer? I couldn't guess it, but I'm not great at riddles.

Considered as poetry, I do find some things I like about it. "Heap" is a creative word choice, because it's not very commonly used with "gold." The slant-rhyme of "people" and "beetle" is just fun to say out loud, and likewise with "want" and "plant" (which rhyme orthographically but not when you say them out loud, at least in American English).

[Nora]

Leaves me pondering: what do potatoes know? and I also can't guess the answer to this riddle, if that is what it is. Love the slant rhymes!

[Cliff Sombito]

Yes, there is knowledge in everything. Even potatoes knows something that you don't even know that's why the answer to the riddle is also a secret.