The Birthplace Of Herbert Hoover Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Welcome to the birthplace of President Herbert Hoover
In small town mid America, West Branch, Iowa

See the Autumnal tones of our American Fall!
His family homesteaded here
In a board and batten cottage
Built by his father, a sober Quaker blacksmith.

When Mr Hoover was voted into the White House
He had all this restored, as befits a national shrine
Of a small town boy made good

You might see a tiny figure, wearing a hat
Pointing towards that simple little cottage
(In case you miss it)
Even the sidewalks emanate from that place

Great oak trees dressed in brown
Lord it over a landscape of ochre, green an rust,
Ululating soft as Granma's quilting

Two boys in overalls walk along on the left
(The agrarian idyll)
Behind them, haystacks prick up in the fields
Like raised stitches, picked out in fine linen
Three chickens peck like golden knotted threads
On an old tapestry, miniscule yet perfect
A pink native boulder placed here in 1929
By the Daughters of the American Revolution;
Reads, 'Birthplace of Herbert Hoover,
First President of the United States
Born West of the Mississippi River.'