The Sum of a Pumpkin

By Vernie Lynn DeMille

 

Seeds

Tucked into a bed of Earth

Wanting warmth, sun, rain, and birth

Of true leaves from the cotyle grown,

A space of swelling, raising, becoming

One’s own.

 

Bursting

Through the day baked mud

Finding air for vitamin, sun for food;

A feast for cells that live on light

And swell from dew on

Starry nights.

 

 

Leaves

Tickled by a passing hoe.

Creeping, crawling, beyond their rows

To wander in the way of gourds

Up fences, trees, and 

old barn doors.

 

And bloom

Like lilies, yellow frilled,

Land born stars in a dusty field.

A footstep falls among powdery leaves, 

Checks swelling buds, prays and

Believes

That time and heart and sun and rain

Will grow a fruit from those spheres of green.

 

 

In every tissue,

Leaf and seed a trembling, swelling, aching need

To pass on the blueprint,

A grand design, of color,

Size and textured

Vine.

 

Here

some yellow, some brown, some blotchy green,

That one smooth or ribbed, or a warty thing.

Yet all alike, each one grows round.

Expanding, Magnificent

To cover the ground.

 

 

The days

Shorten. The sun in its arc

Falls south and men and trucks are parked

Along green fields and race the frost.

That not one golden orb

Be lost.

 

And bring

them round to fill the stand

Where city-folk come to greet the land

And touch the soil and what can be

When love and labor and earth

All meet.

 

 

Tiny hands

Pull at twisted stems

And laugh at the knobs on their new, orange friends.

And hold them all the way back home

To a place of honor

All their own.

 

Maybe

They’ll wear a grinning face.

Or hold a light to mark the place.

Where children will play and gather near,

On a night they’ll speak of

For another year.

 

 

Or perhaps

they’ll grace a harvest feast

As casserole, pie, or centerpiece.

But no matter where the pumpkin rests,

The farmer will always

love it best

 

As a bit of

Sunshine captured in shell of

Gold or orange and tended well.

To do nothing more than gladden a child.

A reaping of Joy

In a harvest of Smiles.