I am a creature
I am a creature
Of corn and beans,
Of fertile dust,
Of atoms hewn from dying stars,
Of curiosity and memory,
A bottomless fount of love and lust;
And while that aquifer shall not run dry,
It thirsts eternally for replenishment.
I love and want to be loved in kind
By all of you, to plant in your collective minds
The way you have in me,
A homestead of all the memories and whimsy
That y'all have gifted me,
Where it is always spring and summer.
A place for me and you and you and you
Where there will forever grow
Rows of lavender and sunflowers,
Strawberry patches, chickens in their dozens,
turkeys and other bully-fowl,
Prancing goats to climb the trees,
a century of cats sunning the long hours,
a grove for nopales and mesquites,
oaks and pines, and that tree
which the Texan part of my peasant soul,
will forever call a cedar.
There is a need for mushroom-bloated logs,
A reed-girt pond to water bounding hogs,
And a haven for serenading frogs.
There must also be a greenhouse.
We must grow hibiscus and papaya,
A cohort of citrus, and glorious guayaba,
And all my parents’ homeland plants
Which bear no English name.
Too, a riotous assembly in the fields
Of every flower, wild or tame,
I have placed behind someone’s ear.
The flowers from those fruit trees
By which we together walked,
Whether our first meeting,
Or ready to break up.
And the dogwood with its stinky blossoms
Will hold pride of place
flanked by daffodils and peonies,
And all around a hedgerow
Made of every succulent and rose
That Father gave to Mother
Even those left unpurchased,
And those that never dared to flower.
Comments (2)
