VEGETABLE

Like this I stand on a sloping road at dusk,

as if something’s happened. People glance, suspicious,

wondering. They pass, looking where I look,

as I reap with my eye these vegetables

at one edge of the market, laid by rows

in the same angled sunlight

I receive. Each day I’ve savored their flesh,

now bright, fresh-souled bitter-melon,

tomatoes, Chinese cabbage, long beans

coiled in stacked wicker baskets,

as if in their last hours still growing,

still adding color.

Like this I stand in the warm breeze,

serenely peaceful on this earth,

a vegetable unharvested,

silent, offering, awaiting flame.