Laura Grace Weldon: "Rutabaga"

You darken as my knife slices
blushing at what you become.
I save your thick leaves
and purple skin
to feed the cows.

A peasant guest at any meal
you agree to hide in fragrant stew
or gleam nakedly
in butter and chives.

Though your seeds are tiny
you grow with fierce will
grateful for poor soil and dry days,
heave up from the ground
under sheltering stalks
to sweeten with the frost.

Tonight we take you into our bodies
as if we do you a favor—
letting your molecules
become a higher being,
one that knows music and art.

But you share with us
what makes you a rutabaga.
Through you we eat sunlight,
taste the soil’s clamoring mysteries,
gain your seed’s perfect might.

"Rutabaga" by Laura Grace Weldon, from Tending (Aldrich Press, 2013). © Laura Grace Weldon. Presented here by poet submission.

Art credit: "Rutabaga," unknown medium, by Lara Call Gastinger. © Lara Call Gastinger, 2004.

 

Laura Grace Weldon: "Forgetting Names"

I can’t call up the familiar name
of our vet, who walked out back
with us through heavy snow
to check our feverish cow
in this day’s quickening darkness.
My skittering memory
only shows me
his thick hair and kind gaze,
his hand gently resting
on our old dog’s head,
a blessing easily bestowed.

No name comes to my lips
although somewhere
a space in my mind
prompts the letter D.
Eyes closed,
I drift into that space
untangled
like a fish free of a net
swims gratefully into open waters.

There I remain, no thought at all
for long moments, when somewhere
behind my eyelids I see
a complicated garment
sagging at the shoulders
where it’s held
as if by invisible hands.
I know this
is the lifetime my soul wears.

Vastness like a perfect secret
stays with me
as I open my eyes,
remembering of course
we’re outfitted in ordinary guises,
going by names
as if simply human.
And I recall the name he wears.
It’s Dave.

"Forgetting Names" by Laura Grace Weldon, from Tending. © Aldrich Press, 2013.

Photography credit: "ortego petting dog," by unknown child photographer, found at this link (originally color).