Friday, April 24, 2015

Poem of the Week: Ross Gay

 

A Small Needful Fact

Is that Eric Garner worked
for some time for the Parks and Rec.
Horticultural Department, which means,
perhaps, that with his very large hands,
perhaps, in all likelihood,
he put gently into the earth
some plants which, most likely,
some of them, in all likelihood,
continue to grow, continue
to do what such plants do, like house
and feed small and necessary creatures,
like being pleasant to touch and smell,
like converting sunlight
into food, like making it easier
for us to breathe.

***
Used with permission.

***
Ross Gay is a gardener and teacher living in Bloomington, Indiana. His book, Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, is available from University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015.

***
Please feel free to share Split This Rock Poem of the Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this post, including this request. Thanks! If you are interested in reading past poems of the week, feel free to visit the blog archive.  

9 comments:

Shaena said...

Thank you for this.

Lina said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Touching.

Thanks from an old lady.

Laura LaVelle said...

This is lovely. Thank you.

Alicia said...

As a gardener and a human, thank you.

Cadence said...

Beautiful and necessary.

thnidu said...

You probably want to delete the spam comment of April 26, 2015 at 12:58 PM.

Janet Vickers said...

Could I have your permission to post this on the Lipstick Press blog? http://lipstickpoetry.blogspot.ca/

Blog This Rock said...

Janet Vickers - absolutely! We just ask that you include all the attribution info, to the poet and to Split This Rock Poem of the Week.
Thanks!