Apocalypto for a Small Planet

& the radio reports how in 2050

farming Massachusetts will be like farming Georgia—

all’s flux, no one can say what will grow in Georgia,

where maples will grow then or whose fine taps

will sap sugar from the cold in spring. Will we get syrup

from the boreal forest, peaches from Massachusetts?

Drone strikes & opium poppies.

Oil spills & poisoned wells.

Drought zone. Famine. War zone.

Artisanal, this

intervention:

what gift

this day.

My inner cynic says

don’t bother this is navel gazing

& my friend at Yale says my hunger

to be near zucchinis

will not save the planet from real hunger

except I remember in the film on gleaning

when the priest in his compassion says:

those who glean now out of spiritual hunger

also should be fed.

Ecosystem of yard or field or mind:

these cucumbers are more art than science,

more daydream

than global action (if we separate the two).

But digging now I feel an otherness—

life, a great inhuman freedom—

here I work a plot that also grounds—

Source: Work and Days (Red Hen Press, 2016)