Tomatoes
It was a good year for tomatoes
cherrys and beafeaters
green vines inching here and there
appearing overnight even
topped with little yellow flowers
I liked smelling my fingers
after picking them
hundreds, perhaps thousands . . .
It was a bad year for Iraq
Afghanistan, the Cubs, Rush Limbaugh, Saddam Hussein
rain forests, polar icecaps, the great barrier reef
Africa
It was a good year for fires
and mud slides
and presidential pals and cronies
And the vote’s still out on us
her and i
but we were better off for the tomatoes
And as the weather worsened
and those green on the vine
failed to ripen
blackened and fell
we still had sauce and had dried a bunch
and some few remained
miraculously fresh and eatable and sweet
thick skin and all
And the soil next year would be spent
and it was still too soon to know
whether the same might be said for us
but at least we had them
those beautiful sweet red tomatoes
goddammit but they were good
—Larry Crist
For copy of actual issue, go to https://www.realchangenews.org/2007/01/31/jan-31-2007-entire-issue