04-19-2016, 04:55 AM
Hope's Unkind Abundance
Hard to think of a garden
when April's so dry.
I trade my usual hat
for a big straw one
and the kid takes off his shirt.
We water each other down
with the hose for fun and then
water the brown ground darker
where a few rows
of a few sprouts
are just barely there.
Oh the boy wants
his carrots to grow!
But I know if leaves are already
yellow, this late in the day and
early in the season, it might not be
outside of reason to think
we'll fail all around.
I watch pale leaves
flutter down out of season.
I side-eye the boy
to see what he notices.
His skin is already
too bright.
It's a sick feeling
to stop lying and let him know
not much is likely to grow
in a drought this bad,
a dangerous feeling,
like we've been had
and black death is grinning
just around the corner
of this calm afternoon.
I'll have to tell him.
I will.
Soon.
~~~
Very loosely after A Yellow Leaf by Ariana Reines.
Hard to think of a garden
when April's so dry.
I trade my usual hat
for a big straw one
and the kid takes off his shirt.
We water each other down
with the hose for fun and then
water the brown ground darker
where a few rows
of a few sprouts
are just barely there.
Oh the boy wants
his carrots to grow!
But I know if leaves are already
yellow, this late in the day and
early in the season, it might not be
outside of reason to think
we'll fail all around.
I watch pale leaves
flutter down out of season.
I side-eye the boy
to see what he notices.
His skin is already
too bright.
It's a sick feeling
to stop lying and let him know
not much is likely to grow
in a drought this bad,
a dangerous feeling,
like we've been had
and black death is grinning
just around the corner
of this calm afternoon.
I'll have to tell him.
I will.
Soon.
~~~
Very loosely after A Yellow Leaf by Ariana Reines.