Rhubarb people

No one is interested in heirloom rhubarb, if there is such a thing. Rhubarb is itself: Rhubarb. Those who like it: do. Those who don't: don't. It's a little like brussels sprouts... another thing the heirloom market has not caught on to. Good thing, I say.

I used to receive

Catalogs in the mail,

Now it is emails:

Heirloom seeds to grow:

Heirloom tomatoes

Miniature cucumbers

No one on my block

Has ever grown.

I have not planted a garden

In three years.

I leave it to the perennials

To show themselves

Or not;

The volunteer bee balm

That arrived

Last year.

The rhubarb comes up

Every year

Demands to be harvested,

Given away

To rhubarb people.

Rhubarb people

Are not easy to determine

They are the ones

Hidden under the rhubarb leaves.

When I harvest

There they are

Waiting.

Pomegranate is a winter fruit

I always hated reading poetry which required a deep understanding of literary allusion.  Especially literary allusion which required knowledge of Greek and Latin and French and Italian.  Here it is Thanksgiving and I am thinking about Persephone, eating pomegranate seeds in the Underworld, and having to live there from three to six months.  She found her way into today's poem.  I think I explained her presence well enough. I did major in Greek as an undergraduate.  But still.  Happy Thanksgiving!

In northern Illinois

Pomegranate is a winter fruit,

Shipped in

From southern climates

On other continents.

It arrives in the stores

At Thanksgiving

With the first flakes of snow.

Every year it seems,

Like Persephone,

I descend to darker places

Only to rise in the light

Come spring.

Pomegranate is a winter fruit.

Of course it is.

Every year I eat at least six seeds

At Thanksgiving

Around a warm family table,

Remember the past months

Of growth and harvest,

Remember the people,

Remember the losses,

The things which are

No longer gathered in

But somehow still remain.

I am grateful

Oh so grateful

Eternally grateful.