Today she labored in the garden which includes
meticulously buried seeds in mounded rows
with signs on sticks to signify this someday crop
of radish, lettuce, broccoli, and all the like
‘neath warming sun, a place well known by keen eyed birds
which, in the past, would stop here once her plants did
sprout.
As history reminds, the healthy seeds should sprout
just as before, with signs of spring, that would include
a gentle sun that melts the frost and hungry birds
that flock about the tender shoots aligned in rows.
But well you know that circumstances seem more like
mere happenstance when planning for a veggie crop.
She waters all the seeds sown in this someday crop
and calculates what time might pass before they sprout.
She reads the weather page but finds she doesn’t like
hypotheses of climate change, for such includes
her space, her land. It could, no doubt, destroy the rows
she’s planted, leaving naught for her nor myriad birds.
For she supports the predilections of these birds,
that silently flock to this place to taste the crop
the swell of tender shoots along the many rows
is glorious. She tugs at weeds so up will sprout
the robust produce to be canned. The list includes
tart relishes and chutneys that her neighbors like.
Hat in hand, she peers with arms akimbo. She’d like
hues of green; there’s still only brown, much like the birds
she wonders why they’ve stayed away, if this includes
the migrant types, not yet arrived to eye her crop
of fresh spring greens, of course, that is if such should
sprout.
She shields her eyes, surveying dearth among the rows.
In evening news the candidates are lined in rows
by left and right (and centrist types). Some seem to like
to stay the course, they have no plans that fully sprout.
Their status quo Kyoto take: “It’s for the birds.”
She wonders if they understand a someday crop
cannot endure the indecision that includes
Ignoring trends and more than that, crises that sprout,
that spurn advances by the birds. Her soil includes
a battlefield, a raging war with this, her crop.
Laura Dvorak
