Friday, July 11, 2025

Nurture Nature

 

Nurture Nature

In pots Mom nurses 
avocado saplings 
(94 —today’s count)
in stages of leafy growth— 
root-bound, crying for transplant— 
plus a couple hundred pits 
suspended in jars of water, 
waiting to sprout. 
Or not sprout. 
Miscarriage is common 
but tossing a pit into trash 
would be like tossing a baby, 
says Mom. 

The saplings don't like this climate 
under redwood trees in coastal fog 
but that's life—you don't get to choose 
where you’re born. Ask any teenager. Ask me.
Come visit, try our guacamole. 
Take some home. And some babies. 
Please. Before they grow dotty and old.

…..

First published in Autumn Sky Poetry by editor Christine Klocek-Lim
Image by johso

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