Daucus carota

for Angela

We came together
to write new chapters
and to tell stories,
if only to ourselves.
Some were writing voluminous sagas,
spending time in cabins
they hoped to translate
like a Boris Pasternak
of Alaska’s near-wilderness.
Others wrote their memoirs,
revealing to us all
just how cold snow can feel
to a Samoan family.
We’d laugh at how ridiculous it all seemed,
and at ourselves because we
are all ridiculous and cold.
I worked on new lines of verse,
wrapped up in myself,
observing and reserved.
We were all doing our part,
all trying to be interesting.
Angela would arrive with carrots,
small globes pulled from her own garden,
and some tea from her travels.
Or beets,
pomelos.
The pomelos she’d purchased
at a grocery store because oranges
and grapefuit
are too ordinary.
They invite no questions.
Her story would transport us
to the places in other states and countries
where she had enjoyed a meal,
or to the soil of her garden,
bursting with vegetables.
And we’d talk about gardening
and the carrots
and hunting.
I would watch her face,
framed with a desire
to be accepted,
to be loved,
appreciated for her carrots and pomelos.
My life would hang there,
uninteresting
and I wouldn’t talk about that with her.
I thought about other Angelas
of my past.
They didn’t share beets with me,
and their offices didn’t have
the sweet aroma of a teahouse,
cinnamon, clove, raspberry,
vanilla, soil.
I wonder about the bonfires
I never attended.
The discarded wood,
the friends and beer.
Was Angela there,
bunch of carrots in hand?
I can see her with the glow on her face
from the brilliant fire,
reflections of children or dogs in her eyes,
smiling because she is happy,
always happy.
What about Faydra?
She has surely lit a few fires
in her solitude.
I wonder how brilliant
the fires used to be for her,
I wonder how dull the fires seem now.
Oh, Faydra!
Faydra
Faydra
I wonder if the carrots help
on the days when things
start to collapse.
I worry about the darkness,
understand it.
When our stories are all written,
will we understand the languages
in which they’ve been written?
I find my own language so difficult,
and I worry about understanding
the bonfires we all set for ourselves,
the interest we take in pomelos,
carrots, cabins, the sun, or
which tea goes best
with happiness.

Written 17 September 2019 in Payne County, Oklahoma

Brian Fuchs, “Daucus carota” from Okie Dokie (Scissortail Press, 2019)