Rescue Plants

Rescue Plants,

That’s what they were, just like

Rescue dogs or cats or some other living

Thing fallen on hard times and needing to

Be rescued from certain disaster, about

A hundred tomato plants, starting to wilt, more

Than a few leaves browning at the edges,

On sale, a good deal, a great deal maybe, if

They Survived.

So, I bought the whole lot and planted them

In the just finished greenhouse, late, third week

In July up in the North Country, and I nurtured

Them, talked to them, sang to them and

Encouraged them, reassuring them that they

Could do it, they could make it, they could

Show those who would have given up on them

That they were fighters, survivors who would

Never go down without a fight, entropy

Be damned!

And they survived, all of them, not even one

Surrendered before its time, growing and growing,

A foot tall, two feet, four feet, some even six

Feet tall and all bearing fruit, more than even I

Imagined, almost two-thousand tomatoes, And

Even at the end, the final harvest, these plants,

These rescue plants gave it their all, every

Last piece of themselves, the limbs without fruit

Shriveled in sacrifice to nurture the limbs with

Fruit, each plant hunched over from the weight

Of their would-be progeny, unwilling, perhaps

Unable, to let go.

And as I picked the last of the tomatoes, I

Thought to pull my rescue plants up from the

Roots, to prepare the beds for next year, but

I could not do it, I would not do it. They should

Have an honorable death, on their own terms,

In their own time, they had more than earned

This, and if you think I admired these simple

Rescue tomato plants, you are right. If you

Think I am overly sentimental, perhaps too you

Are right as well, but before you decide you

Should find some rescue plants, nurture them,

Watch them as they struggle to survive against

All odds, and then tell me you care naught of

Their fate or their struggle, or perhaps you will

Come to see that their fate and their struggle

Is the same as ours in the end and realize

Too, that few of us will acquit ourselves

As well as these, my simple Rescue plants.