George Travels to Vienna for His Cousin’s Wedding
Lynn Guttmann
leaving me to harvest the abundance of his garden
plump Early Girls
and buff Better Boys
Royal Mountie
and dapper Mr. Stripey
the chubby Cherry
Early Wonders
and Super Sweets
pick, pick, pick
Big Kahuna and
Haricots Verts
Kentucky Blue Greens
Demeter commands:
get ye ripe plump orbs
and spiral strings
swell and burst to fullness
my pearl-tight clusters
and seductive amber pods
And I am her acolyte. I don my tomato red shirt, my dirt brown clogs, gardening gloves and lift the heavy leaves to enter her foliage-heavy realm where sharp-edged shadows split to streaks of sunlight.
Roma tendrils release pungent, peaty scent
and –
there!
there they are!
beneath the flaring zucchini flowers
my lost pair of glasses
staring at me through dark eyes.
I put them on,
the day’s glare recedes into tawny tint.
I set my bursting basket by my side
relax against the garden fence
and see
in a half-dream ~
one-year-old Sabine teething
on a green bean
while her grandma, Leslie,
and I chat under the vining canopy
collecting slender pole-beans.
Across the yard,
"La belle Epoque” madame
flaunts her luscious figs
With sweet talk,
my friends and neighbors
[in their county fair finery]
coax plump fruit
into their trays, baskets, bowls and bags.
Mata-ji, graceful,
Bapu, genteel,
walk up the street
toward home ~
Big Kahunas
Kentucky Blue Greens
Royal Mounties
and
one dapper Mr. Stripey
jostle for room in their raffia basket.
Babu turns – and waves
smiling
into my smile
About the Author: Lynn Guttmann
As an accomplished visual artist, my pastels and drawings have been selected for numerous art shows and festivals over the last five decades. But, as my fibromyalgia fatigue flareups became more frequent, I decided to retire from my day-job as a municipal engineering director and learned that taking long naps allowed my verbal creativity brain cells to expand. I now find spontaneous pleasure in writing poetry, reading, gardening and giggling with grandchildren. My poems have been published in Lifelines Literary Journal and Wordgatherings