I thought this poem very appropriate for summer, although I realize it hasn't quite reached some of you! It certainly has reached San Juan del Rio! Hot, sunny, hot, windy, beautiful, cloudy yesterday but still hot, we love it!
THE YELLOW SQUASH
Reprinted from Harvesting Fog, Copyright Luci Shaw 2010, Pinyon Publishing.
Used by permission of the author.
It seemed to grow with the light, the spring days
lengthening to summer, the single seed bursting
into beak and stalk, leaves like spread hands.
The forward thrusting end enlarged,
a curving length of neck growing to a bulbous
sphere, like a human head, it became
a personality, a member of the family.
All summer it swelled, a gold sun peering
through hairy green clouds until its immensity
made the sidewalk pedestrians gawk.
Detached, it waited in our kitchen. It felt
like homicide when we beheaded it for the potluck,
chopping the muscled neck into chunks to bake
with brown sugar, butter, and a mystery spice
we found in the drawer. (So succulent! Later
we made a generous soup with the leftovers.)
But the head, stranded for days on the counter,
wept large pale tears until the air
comforted it dry - the surface a patterned silk,
the ends of its fibers a circle of little stars.
2 comments:
I like Lucy Shaw's poetry! You'll have to pull this one out when you come up in the fall and eat a whole bunch of squash.
Just becoming acquainted with Shaw's poetry and I have to say she is very refreshing. Delightful poem, especially the beheading of the squash. Thank you for this.
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