Sunday, April 5, 2015

PAD - Day 5 - Vegetables - Sweet Sacrificials


Sweet Sacrificials

peas did not always
tickle the palate
pushed by small
fingers around the 
plate -  until finally
Father asked – 
“Did I know?? 
That a farmer
had met the dawn to
to turn the soil to work
furrows in the readied
earth. To plant the seeds
and tend them through
frost, and heat and rain
and drought-in manured
stench- in threat of mud
Watching in wait, for life.
 Green vined tendrils.
Tenderly tended until
pods plumped enough 
to be picked with care-
full hands. Peas bursting
within. Peas, eager to sacrifice
their short green lives - packed
for travel to my plate – tumbled
there - Only to have me in arrogance
of unknowing push them aside? Aside?
Desecrating farm mission and vegetative
validity with sharp toddler tines rejecting
this greatest sacrifice of all - gift of farmer’s
work and lives of sweet green peas boiled
bright, staring up at me in bated expectation???"

Then, knowing all that went before - 
there was no choice - 
Staring at those sweet  
sacrificials  
I honored them 
and their creators
with wet shamed
eyes. I smiled,
scooped, 
swallowed 
and 
 ate my peas 
as any 
good girl 
would 





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