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Posts Tagged ‘broccoli’

 

 

Today I talk to the broccoli sprouts.

I kneel down beside their bed.

You can do it, I tell them.

I don’t mention that every summer

there is a hail storm that will

puncture and tear their leaves,

that bits of their green will litter the soil.

 

Though the sprouts are less

than half an inch tall,

the leaves already look tough—

like thick four leaf clover.

The hail, though, will be tougher.

 

Perhaps I don’t want

to tell myself how tough things will get.

Would rather encourage. Would rather play.

Would rather revel in the day’s sun.

But today, there’s no lying to the self—

the inner hail has already come;

my leaves hang in tatters.

All around me, flower petals

are fallen, scattered.

Out of season, widespread wreckage.

 

There is an inner knowing, though—

one that needs no one else

to encourage it. It knows to grow,

to grow despite the damage, to grow,

because damage. To grow. It knows

to grow, because that is what we are here to do,

our new leaves coming in to support the old,

to support the whole, every bit as vulnerable,

and green, so green.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The broccoli was a disappointment this year—

planted from seed, it had finally begun to sport

small knobby green heads when the frost came.

And though the broccoli didn’t die, it stalled.

Perhaps I fear I am like this broccoli—destined

to grow but never to fruit. Perhaps this is why

I feel such urgency, this need to write faster,

heal quicker, mature sooner, love more. Because

what if the freeze comes? What if I die before

doing what I have come here to do?

 

There is a part of me who is patient. A part of me

who says, Sweet One, you could not possibly be

any more you than you are right now. She tells me,

You are exactly enough. And sometimes I believe her.

But sometimes I roll my eyes at her and tell myself,

Hurry up, hurry up. I know myself as barren stalk.

I try to will my own ripening. Not once has it worked,

not once, and still this strange drive:

go faster, do it better, do it now.

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