JULIE SUK
Seeds
I halve an apple on the radius
and discover a star-shaped center.
At the flowering end of the apple
you see the same star
only pulled in
the way a turtle snaps back
frightened
into puckered skin
the way we clutch what we own
don’t touch! don’t touch!
as if this was likely
preserved as we are
and swathed to death.
But this inner star is open
full of seeds
jumbled like miniature boats
robbed and left in an ancient tomb
long since forgotten.
Every where hunger.
Ferryboat seeds going out
coming back
oarless
the life inside
waiting to be rescued.
MICHAEL McFEE
A Tumbleweed from Texas
When the world
is flat as West
Texas and the only
relief is the sight
of someone else’s
accidental fortune
welling up and the sky
seems the merciless
iris of God, you
begin to understand
how regular people can
rob banks or execute
families out of plain
boredom, and why,
starved for motion,
this grown weed will
break itself off at
the ground and roll
away from its roots
until it becomes pure
economy of form,
refined by the sun
and wind into nothing
worth loving, a nomad
worshipping whatever
moves him and spills
his seed, a tinder-
hearted exile, a bush
ready for burning.
HEATHER ROSS MILLER
The Comet
Thrusting west,
Bright hairs combed out in a tail,
The comet appeared, just visible,
Over the beam of the barn.
It had no business
Flicking so nervously in the dark
And scattering fiery hairs all over our yard.
And neither had you any business sitting there
So primly in the black grass,
Your sharp bright face
Sighted westward,
Up skyward,
Watching that comet usurp the sky.
Strangers appear.
They get themselves born in country beds
And are christened.
Comets, without warning, seize the sky
Late a country evening,
While potatoes still bubble in the pot.
And late a country evening,
You watch the fiery sky
And read a language written
For your nebulous eye.
GRASS
NANCY SIMPSON
Grass
We ought to be thankful it grows wild
on roadbanks, sometimes blond and curled.
It holds earth together and still
we hear Earth is falling.
Sink holes in the south swallow cars.
We do not doubt, but can we help wonder
what happens when the bottom drops?
Maybe clumps fall with the Jeep
and the Porsche, forming the shoreline
of a lake, in some posh suburb.
Grass has a right to be cherished,
Crowning Glory, clipped to perfection.
No matter where we sleep we live
with threat hanging over our lawns.
Who says we need more weapons?
We want to know what will happen to grass,
grass everywhere, amber savannahs,
sacred as the hair on our heads.
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