Friday, November 19, 2004

A poem for Friday

Before the Frost

I stopped watering the tomato plants
sometime in September. Here it is
a hand-made stone wall
November and they still wring from the soil
condensation, cat pee, the odd drop of rain.

They reach for the last scraps of sun
I know death is a degree away. They,

in their oblivion, hold out the hard
and small green fruit of hope.

-- Lorri Smith (12/98)

(from ancient days of rec.arts.poems, probably,
but definitely stored on my quiescent poetry page)

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