My father, digging. I look down
-- Speaker (Line 5)

Importance: This quote is one of the poem’s first lines and also its first turning point — the speaker moves from a place of stasis to one of observation. The father’s action serves as the catalyst for the emotions and memories that power the entire poem. The stanza is enjambed, setting up an expectation with the closing sentence and then expanding it in the next line into something new.

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds / Bends low, comes up twenty years away
-- Speaker (Lines 6-7)

Importance: Here, the speaker combines simple objective imagery with figurative language. The movements of the father lead the speaker through time. The simplicity of the single movement gives the poem a cinematic quality; it’s easy to imagine the shift between one state of consciousness and another as the speaker observes his own past.

To scatter new potatoes that we picked, / Loving...
-- Speaker (Lines 13-14)