The Sadness of Gardens
 Liz Henry

  

       
Fruits once grown
must be
    however heavy in the hands
must be eaten

tell me, how the cumbersome zucchinis -
how do they come to bear fully their fruits

Yellow blossoms first
pale moths, web-thin,
stuffed dead in the pan
ghoulish skin, old hands’ skin,
crepe paper and lumps underneath -

when the sadness of the stalks
with their burden
the sadness of the hands
on their round skinned arms
the leaf-fuzz, springing -

the good fruit so easy and young
and so many -
despised like soldiers about to go
over the trench-lip

The harvest.
No, not despised -
we will eat it,
we will work to eat it

Once we had nothing
and now this corn, these tomatoes,
this hereditary sadness.
Oh! in The War.  Oh! On Broad Street.
It was hard then,
but look, now they grow tall here
unstoppable from the seed -
feel them, firm in the skins
feel their thightight flanks
feel here, carry them

with a smile sad with the welcome
of more of the harvest, the free, the bounty,
the gift of the gods, the abundant, the joy and pleasure,
the round limbs lopped from the stem wantonly and felt with fingers,
how can they be welcome?

Given or sold
or right here for free,
right out of the ground,
it’s a miracle
because they are the best
of all possible fruits,
it’s the good life
until glutted
on the mild suburban soil
ripe with oil and salt
and our own thighs
mauled and tilled
like victory gardens
for a past war not our war
because we are healthy and young
we burst

The sadness of a place
or a time
can only be held
in the arms
for a moment

like growing children
Unfortunately that same moment
keeps coming around
like harvest time
or spring