COVID Gardens
On our dining room table
a pitcher holding magenta peonies
and bright orange Gerber daisies
spills its June color and scent
over coffee cups and Sunday paper
The flowers are a gift
cut for me yesterday evening
by neighbors grateful
for the strawberry jam
I walked over to their house
The strawberries plucked
earlier in the day from my garden were
no more and no less crimson,
no more and no less sweet,
than they needed to be
In my kitchen, the blood
of the earth mingled
with the snow of sugar
until their heating alchemy
reached perfection, was jarred
Garden gifts making for rich
tables in slim times —
mine, plentiful with print and flowers
theirs, with jam, bread and butter,
or perhaps just with a good lick
to the back of a spoon
Claudia Castro Luna is the current Washington State Poet Laureate. View her website here. The Washington State Poet Laureate program is a partnership between Humanities Washington and ArtsWA/The Washington State Arts Commission.
- Category: Poem
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- Tags: Claudia Castro Luna, COVID, Poetry, Washington State Poet Laureate