At Dusk, the Potato Vine
by Kimberley Pittman-Schulz
Something comes, like scented air
filling an empty clay pot-breathing in,
something vague but familiar.
It is joy. It is that little red beetle
of bliss landed on your sleeve.
Afraid to disturb it, you sit still, awed,
trying to set every detail into memory
so that you can command this moment
back out of your deep and restless life.
Nothing has changed.
The foxgloves still break into the mud
under their own weight. A Certain
elderly woman folds her wide linens,
sobbing with grief. Friends carry
their cancers, gnawing inside them
like hungry grubs, from meeting
to meeting. Children stand barefoot
in the bush waiting for someone
to feed them. Planes land in the sea,
and whales strand themselves
on the shore. A scorched place
on the mountainside used to be a village.
Somewhere the sun rises
on a bruise, a stain of blood,
millions of hands, buried.
But here the potato vine vibrates
with the brightest green light
out of a corner, and you see it.
There is nothing more beautiful
than its heart-shaped leaves, its velvet
exuberant reaching, tumbling out
of its mossy basket, each tendril with its
tiny tongue of glossy new foliage.
For no reason, and not because you
are deserving, this gift-
this happiness so intense
that for a brief time you don't care
if you are the only one saved.
