PAD - Day 5 - Vegetables - Sweet Sacrificials

Petr Kratochvil

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