Rose1986I've pulled the last of the year's young onions.The garden is bare now.The ground is cold,brown and old.What is left of the day flamesin the maples at the corner of myeye.I turn, a cardinal vanishes.By the cellar door, I wash the onions,then drink from the icy metal spigot.Once, years back, I walked beside my fatheramong the windfall pears.I can't recallour words.We may have strolled in silence.ButI still see him bend that way-left hand bracedon knee, creaky-to lift and hold to myeye a rotten pear.In it, a hornetspun crazily, glazed in slow, glistening juice.It was my father I saw this morningwaving to me from the trees.I almostcalled to him, until I came close enoughto see the shovel, leaning where I hadleft it, in the flickering, deep green shade.White rice steaming, almost done.Sweet green peasfried in onions.Shrimp braised in sesameoil and garlic.And my own loneliness.What more could I, a young man, want.
