(with a wave to William Carlos Williams)

Thank you for the peach pie

red gold, gooey, thick and crusty:

peaches carried heaped in a basket

up the hill from the tree we planted

seven years ago, watched over,

pruned, debugged, (harvested

one rock of a peach that first year)

and now its branches bent to the ground

on the uphill side, their burden of fuzzy

softening fruit almost more joy

than they can bear. Read on… »

over romaine greens.  I wonder
at the pleasure these pungent fungi

bring — gold in a chef’s pan.
White truffle oil, my preference,

more peppery than the black.
Makes sense — being part Sicilian —

that the robust Italian whites
appeal more than the tamer ebon

French ones.  All sub rosa
root-clinging symbiotic

fruiting tubers — a cabal
of crafty warty walnuts.

Beware the poisonous
false ones.  A bit of truffle Read on… »

Against alphabetical indoctrination, let’s start
by blessing the zinnias, whose color nourishes
our famished eyes, whose fortitude in a vase of water
is legendary. Today they’re only a fuzz of green
along the path, but we can feel them growing,
bright flags of summer, and the heavy, sexy
heirloom tomatoes that we’ll hold in our hands
and eat like apples, the green beans, the spinach,
the quiet potatoes sleeping beneath us, gathering
color and strength. Read on… »