Tomato said, “I will speak for the life of the sauce that finds me squashed or diced and sometimes whole.
Fig said, “I will speak for the jam that sweetens my flavor in a delightful spread on biscuit.
Onion said, “I belong in every garden, in every dish and in your tears.
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NaPoWriMo Day 20 prompt to write a poem that anthropomorphizes food.
Young and sweet
pick a beet
so tasty
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dVerse prompt to use a line from the lyrics of Dancing Queen by ABBA
Bulging with fertility
too lovely to eat
ripened to perfection
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dVerse prompt on a remembrance of fruit. This heirloom tomato came out of my garden looking a lot like the Venus of Willendorf.
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Sliced
There is much to do
weather is changing
prepare for less light
more rain
bring in chairs
fold the sunshades
move plants inside
where they will linger
in warmth of a fireplace
or the winter sun
coming through glass
perhaps flower and fruit
again
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dVerse prompt to write a quadrille using the word linger. I am preparing for the continuous rains and trying something new in bringing some potted plants (tomato and pepper) inside to see if they will continue to produce.
So many times
this nursery rhyme spoken
a tongue twister
with its own history
Pierre Poivre
missionary from France
with an eye on peppers
places to plant and grow
and a recipe for pickling
no refrigeration
so Peter Piper picked
and pickled
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dVerse prompt on stream of consciousness following my first experiment with pickling peppers. This rhyme was a childhood favorite.
MEMORIES of cotton picking days
picked along with men and women
all over the South
people of all colors
fourteen footer dragged behind
filled with cotton
picked from each boll
start when you’re old enough
to hold a sack
sang in harmony
as we picked
infant scooting behind
too small to pick
“cotton on the roadside
cotton in the ditch
we all picked cotton
but we never got rich”
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photo from SMU Degolyer Library
Kenya sugar snap peas
leeks and cucumber Holland
Tesco radish and asparagus mushrooms from China
baby corn and red chili Thailand broccoli from Spain
local lettuce
baby carrots from USA
Haricot vert from Italy
India okra
bananas from Ecuador clementines from South Africa Australia mandarins
Pakistan and Egyptian mangoes New Zealand apples
green apples from France
local beets
seedless lime from Vietnam eggplant from GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council)
Morocco provides tomato
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supermarket in Dubai
Harvest comes later this year
combines in the field
separate soybeans from chaff
thrash the corn
aphids go down with the stalk
imported Japanese beetles
ladybugs and Asian lady beetles
(hard to tell the difference)
fly away home
try to survive the long winter
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dVerse prompt on an aspect of fall
Fields of corn and dust as the combine harvester chops down the whole plant, splices the kernel off the ear and spits out the cob leaving the golden harvest. The modern day thrashing has made the work fast with tons of corn in a day. Down the road the ethanol plant will purchase truck loads with jobs for the locals and help to the rural economy.
If the corn is not sold it will be stored in the silos and cribs or fed to pigs who are raised in confinements. Thousands of pigs confined to small pens where their pig shit falls into a pit to be used as fertilizer. Fallow are the fields that beckon the first frost. Fallow are the fields that glow with the first snow.
Winter hardened ground
Frozen against the sharp plow
After harvest time
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dVerse prompt on haibun Monday and the first frost
Transformed from a small wrinkled seed set in soil at springtime
I hold the beets by their rat tails after yanking them out of the bed
They do not squeak or squeal as I hose them off for my dinner pot
Filled with docility and content to roast in the oven at a high degree
Except the one that got away by rolling downhill as I lost my grip
Then poof by magic it sprouted legs with blood red fur it ran
It ran to the woods without looking back and I never saw it again
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dVerse prompt on magic and an edict to lighten up
wordshophop 