Obeisance
Lemon cucumbers lift fat
leaves
below the climbing peas,
plumping up their sweetness
inside lime green pods,
this space shared between
seasons.
Soon the cool damp
gives way to fierce blaze
when other species can
survive.
I kneel to nurse each,
ask each to challenge its
limits.
The sun hides or shouts at
whim,
and I, the jester trying to
jolly
my way past the king’s bad
humor,
know I’ll bow to the will of
heaven,
my dream of a green thumb
such a frail stay against each day’s
raucous cosmic laughter.
Carol
Hamilton has recent publications in South Carolina Review, Poet Lore, Tulane Review, slipstream, River Oak Review, Tar River Review, San Pedro River Review, Willow Review, White Wall Review, Bryant Literary Review, U. S.
Newsletter and others. She has been nominated five times for a
Pushcart Prize. She has published 15
books of children's novels, legends and poetry, most recently, Master of Theater: Peter The Great and Lexicography. She is
a former Poet Laureate of Oklahoma.
