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 ...