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Is it Hot in Here? Or is It August?

Sure, August is the hottest month, but the temperature's got nothing to do with it. For most backyard gardeners, these 31 days are the culmination of 11 months of waiting and wondering and breathlessly anticipating the climax of the entire year. The month of May is but a flirtatious glance, a mere glimpse of possibility, a hint of a romance that may or may not come to fruition. But in August, we experience the panting, sweating, throbbing, uninhibited consummation of a relationship that began a few months back when we pressed a few vegetable seeds or seedlings -- firmly, gently, probingly -- into the fertile earth.

I think the sensual pleasures of fresh, ripe August vegetables make a fitting subject for poetry. Apparently, so does Barbara Crooker. She's the award-winning poet who has so beautifully captured this lustful appreciation of an end-of-summer garden in 30-some lines of verse, aptly entitled Vegetable Love:

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Feel a tomato, heft its weight in your palm,
think of buttocks, breasts, this plump pulp.
And carrots, mud clinging to the root,
gold mined from the earth's tight purse.
And asparagus, that push their heads up,
rise to meet the returning sun,
and zucchini, green torpedoes
lurking in the Sargasso depths
of their raspy stalks and scratchy leaves.
And peppers, thick walls of cool jade, a green hush.
Secret caves. Sanctuary.
And beets, the dark blood of the earth.
And all the lettuces: bibb, flame, oak leaf, butter-
crunch, black-seeded Simpson, chicory, cos.
Elizabethan ruffs, crisp verbiage.
And spinach, the dark green
of northern forests, savoyed, ruffled,
hidden folds and clefts.
And basil, sweet basil, nuzzled
by fumbling bees drunk on the sun.
And cucumbers, crisp, cool white ice
in the heart of August, month of fire.
And peas in their delicate slippers,
little green boats, a string of beads,
repeating, repeating.
And sunflowers, nodding at night,
then rising to shout hallelujah! at noon.

All over the garden, the whisper of leaves
passing secrets and gossip, making assignations.
All of the vegetables bask in the sun,
languorous as lizards.
Quick, before the frost puts out
its green light, praise these vegetables,
earth's voluptuaries,
praise what comes from the dirt.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Whew! I need a cold drink. Or a cigarette.

 


Shari Danielson is editorial director at Simple, Good and Tasty. And she wants to add, for the record, that she has never smoked a cigarette in her entire life -- even after lustful encounters with vegetables and/or people. You can write to her at shari@simplegoodandtasty.com.