The earth’s economy
Just when I thought the day
had nothing left to give,
when heat was ladled across
the shallow dry plate
of the nation, working or not, alive
or not, my country
road home from work
an affair of sour radio news and roadkill—
the furred skunk, possum, cat,
squirrel, raccoon, in the
special economy of the outward-
facing nose, lost in final scent,
the surrendered open mouth,
forehead pressed back in frozen
tragedy, tension gone, time done,
appetite dissolving into skull—
I find myself at the kitchen counter
in a different Americana, tearing
kale ruffles from their spines
for a chilled supper of greens with lemon
and oil, Dijon, garlic, cucumber—
live, wet and impossibly cool from the
earth garden just outside the door,
where the farmer’s wife one hundred
years ago also opened her apron
like a cradle, gingerly receiving
into thin billowing cotton pockets
as much as she could carry
as much as she could carry
—Ruth Mowry, from The Joy of Poetry
Megan Willome, T. S. Poetry Press, 2016
Want the whole 30 poems, 30 prompts series in one convenient place?
You can get that in Earth to Poetry: A 30-Days, 30-Poems Earth, Self and Other Care Challenge.
