NYU Black Renaissance Noire Spring/Summer 2014 | Page 19

TWO PLANTS

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BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE

I plant these seeds among thickets
of plants whose names I do not know;
I dig quick and hard, turn the soil—
twisting pink worms, purpling on their
topside dance in my handful
of dark loam, so rich, so damp,
so worn. I plow, I level, then plow
again, picking out stones, lumps
of cement, old spoons, rusted cans
and caked up pieces of paper, I plant
these seeds despite the crowding
of vegetation whose names I don’t
know. I wait for rain, wait for light
to break through the shadowing trees,
wait for a hint—for pale rubbery
green shoots, for the promise
of life, something that shaped
my days on the farm, my days
on somebody else’s land; my days
counting the weeks, the months
before harvest, before this backbreaking labor for the man. One
plant breaks out, loud, boisterous,
first, but crippled. It limps along,
always struggling to live, always
ugly, always loyal to the soil,
it is the broken creature, just living,
just living in the yard. The second
breaks soil fully made, grows
stiff-backed upwards, asks for
nothing and gets everything,
pleads for nothing, gets blessings;
this diabolic plant has forgotten
the touch of my fingers, scratching
the soil to make a bed. This, too,
is my seed. They will poison
me before I understand them,
before I understand me in them.