Ellen Dooling Reynard
Picking Vegetables
A visitor to this garden
searching for its hidden gifts,
pulls aside a serrated leaf
to discover an eggplant:
amethyst pendant
like a milk-full breast.
Plucked from its stem,
it lies in a basket.
Afternoon sun glints
on the smooth skin.
Red heirloom tomatoes,
near bursting with sweet juices
soon nestle beside it.
Next, butter-toned summer squash,
still wearing their springtime hats,
plop into the basket
and the visitor turns to go,
content to have found
all that is to be found
in this garden.
Unseen, a pea pod hangs
from its vine, spared--
for now.
Ellen Dooling Reynard spent her childhood on a cattle ranch in Jackson, Montana. A one-time editor of Parabola Magazine, she is now retired and lives in Nevada City, California where she writes fiction and poetry. Her poems have been published in various journals including Persimmon, The Ekphrastic Review, Silver Blade and Muddy River Poetry Review.
A visitor to this garden
searching for its hidden gifts,
pulls aside a serrated leaf
to discover an eggplant:
amethyst pendant
like a milk-full breast.
Plucked from its stem,
it lies in a basket.
Afternoon sun glints
on the smooth skin.
Red heirloom tomatoes,
near bursting with sweet juices
soon nestle beside it.
Next, butter-toned summer squash,
still wearing their springtime hats,
plop into the basket
and the visitor turns to go,
content to have found
all that is to be found
in this garden.
Unseen, a pea pod hangs
from its vine, spared--
for now.
Ellen Dooling Reynard spent her childhood on a cattle ranch in Jackson, Montana. A one-time editor of Parabola Magazine, she is now retired and lives in Nevada City, California where she writes fiction and poetry. Her poems have been published in various journals including Persimmon, The Ekphrastic Review, Silver Blade and Muddy River Poetry Review.