Text Box: Tomatoes Do you ever wonder what poets sit around thinking about, when we sit around thinking about things besides poetry? Well, all afternoon, it seems my mind has circled around the subject of tomatoes. Not those green-in-the-middle, waxy, tasteless hothouse things they’re slicing up at places like Subway. I mean the real thing. Today I was reading Time magazine, and saw a photo of a bunch of soldiers on a vehicle, trying to stay down out of the wind and the danger. One guy was holding a bag of candy. Can you handle it? These kids traveled half way around the world, enduring hardship, danger and facing death, and they’re munching on Skittles. Surreal. My grandpa had a big row of tomato plants out in the back yard, along the north fence in full summer sun. To get there, you walked under a trellis covered with flowering vines, and past the end of the clothesline. So a kid might be tempted to take a detour through the fresh, damp sheets on a hot day, on his way to pick a few for lunch. They were so good, gathering all their flavor from time in the sun. There is no substitute for patience. I remember being out there with Papa when I was in college. He was on crutches then. Somewhere I have a photo of him using one crutch to hold back the leaves of a plant, like a surgeon exposing a heart. He showed me how he started the water at the top of the row and let it flow from plant to plant. Papa is in heaven now. There won’t be any more tomatoes. But I cherish the memories, which I would give up if only these kids, who maybe haven’t tasted tomatoes like I’ve tasted, hadn’t been sent to that damn desert with their rifles and charcoal-lined suits and their MREs and candy. God let them come home and drift like me into the poetry of middle age, studying the language of watching things grow. Posted by Kyle, 4/3/2003 12:28 AM  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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