Richibi’s Weblog

outsized radishes (November 26, 2015)

_____________

upon considering large radishes

I wrote a letter to my love
and marketwards I dropped it,
a little urchin must’ve picked it up
and put it in hir pocket

red peppers there, potatoes, pears,
parsleys, persimmons, parsnips,
cauliflower, cabbage, carrots, celery,
broccoli, rosemary, thyme, and turnips

but the radishes

what big radishes you’ve got, I thought,
the better, I deemed, to adorn my salads,
some red, some pink, some cream, some white,
all primed for my discriminating palate

presented gingerly in leafy green,
sold in inorganic, incongruous thus, individual blue elastics,
a brand name, the merchant’s label,
a small but indestructible, and glaring, plastic

something, of course, outrageous a pound,
or gram, at the indifferent check-out counter,
which, however dogmatic, I invariably pay,
to avoid any indecorous, unpleasant encounter

whatever is under my belt, no one can take away,
I’ve preached, propounded, promoted, pronounced,
before every filet mignon I’ve enjoyed
which another might’ve dutifully renounced

later, slicing these rarities, positively Swiftian,
I thought, verily Brobdingnagian, enormous,
pinwheels on my variety of vivid vegetables,
golf balls on my artfully distributed lettuce

what are they doing, though, to our planet,
momentarily I wondered, however impotently, I’ll admit,
having long ago succumbed to proliferating produce misfits,
with the advent of broccolini and, gosh, multicoloured carrots

my salad, with roasted prawns, and an
oil and vinegar vinaigrette, was to die, incidentally,
though not a word from the urchin,
nor from my love, not, I suppose, unnaturally, neither unexpectedly

may all your vegetables be ever so amazing

Richard