First Frost - Oct 21 2021

 

First Frost

Oct 21 2021

The first frost of fall.

The garden,

now with its carrots pulled, tomatoes plucked

and lettuce long gone

had a heavy crop of kale.

Enough

that much was left in the ground.

And now, touched by frost, it somehow tastes sweeter;

far better, eaten fresh

than the supermarket stuff

imported from industrial fields.

How perverse

that my neglect was rewarded.

And could this be a lesson in adversity, as well;

how being tested

not only toughens

but improves?

The rest will be left for the rabbits

and then the winter cold.

To return to earth, where it will decompose,

enriching the soil

and keeping it warm

beneath the drifted snow.

Kale has a bad rep: a “healthy” food that one eats out of virtue and duty, not pleasure. But when my neighbours invited me to take from from their garden as much leftover kale as I wanted, I was surprised how delicious it was. Especially after being touched by frost, which seemed to have only improved it. Was this a lesson in the benefit of adversity? Perhaps a short poem was worth a try.

I think the final stanza is a message about seeing nature as a whole: interdependent and complex; cyclic; frugal. Like energy, nothing is destroyed, just re-imagined. Although I think what I had in mind in starting this poem is contained in the 2^nd last: the idea of adversity being a good thing . . .even though we never think so at the time!