Poem for the Day

October 16
Single-Heartedness
Not content with having spent all summer
pumping out giant crookneck squash (some weighing
more than seventeen pounds), this old (in vegetable time)
squash plant continues her work as blithely and confidently as if
it were early June instead of late October. Wide green leaves
flutter on the fence, small squash
curl fetus-like under warm green leaves, and
three bright yellow blossoms, full of purpose and ignorance,
grin into the late afternoon sun.
They do not know that the television soothsayers
have looked into their bird entrails and seen hoar frost
on tomorrow’s lawns and death’s wilt and shrivel on
every growing thing.

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