The poets and the farmers

 

For a while now the poets have known

the farmers and now the farmers know

the poets and they say hello and hug them

and Elle says again, You were so wonderful

on Friday night and Frankie is smiling

because it is never too late or early for

a compliment meant genuinely and I give

Frankie free zinnias by Ellie not because

she is a poet but because she is a very good

human who has such strange handwriting

that it makes people want to tattoo it on their

bodies, and she tattooed it on hers but not

in a braggy way, in a columnar/cut-off way,

and I like to watch people ask her about it

and I think to myself that I’d never tattoo

myself because I hate repeating myself

but, to repeat myself, now the farmers know

the poets and they like them for their words

and savvy presentation (I think of Scott

in the front row of the sideyard smiling like

someone gave him the exact correct birthday

present) and the poets love the farmers

for their very good foods like Nardello

peppers which are sweet and the most

divine, they’re Ellie’s favorite and she’s

a painter and a farmer, too. And life, I think,

is not as simply roasted as a pepper is, but

it is sweet to watch a farmer hug a poet

hug a professor hug a trapezist hug

a graphic designer slash table maker

hug  a videographer hug me, I’m hugging

all of them one after another or two

at once at the farmstand on a Sunday,

and I think we’re all farmers inside somehow,

all artily growing or having newly grown.