I
was kneeling in my garden when
I saw him He
looked like a scarecrow, standing
in his small patch of corn, with
an upturned mouth and dusty clothes Without
words he raised one arm to me, and
I raised mine to him, closing
the silent space between two suburban farmers A
minute later, he
was right next to me waving
four slender ears of corn in front of my face “I
have to warn you,” he
said “This
corn was grown au naturel, if
you find creatures in there just scrape them off with a knife” He
went on to tell me about his wife, how
she used to be terrified of what she'd find under the husks: wriggling
little insects, sun shocked and groggy, unaware
of how soon they'd be stripped from their beds She
died one year ago He
promised to leave the corn on my porch and
turned to walk away He
had been standing on one of my plants, my
baby chard plant—only a few weeks old, it
was split at the stem, and
a leaf hung toward the ground like
an arm bent crooked at the elbow I
watched my neighbor walk away with
that corn laid tenderly in his arms, and
I realized then, that
sometimes it's okay, to
just let go of a small thing, like
a broken baby chard plant
| This poem was about a memorable moment I shared with my neighbor, whose offer of the corn communicated a story to me. It brought me in to the world that he shared with his wife, who I never knew. His generosity, textured with sadness and love, made me look at the issue of the broken plant with whole new perspective. I went into my house after gardening, and sure enough, there was the corn sitting on a bench on my front porch. I ate it that night with gratitude. |
