Watering the Plants

INTRO:

Every night, he stands in his garden with a sprinkler set to mist, coaxing parched stems back to green. It is tender, patient work, and it is humbling, because one good rain does in an hour what he labors over for weeks. In "Watering the Plants," the poet turns a small domestic ritual into a wry meditation on caretaking, providence, and the quiet vanity of wanting to be thanked.

By Vincent R. Pozon

The trunk, erstwhile fleshy, is nearly
desiccated; each remaining tendril
curls at the air, and with what vigor

it has left, lifts itself, all but untethered,
beseeching the night for the hope
of moisture, each tendril, a tortured prayer.

I am Man urgently intervening
in a natural process, this, after all,
is within the purview of the gods,

I am preventing brown and yellow
and wrinkle from subduing
green and vivid and bloom.

Though colossal a task, I must be gentle,
the sprinkler set almost to mist,
never tempestuous, never a torrent,

only kind, only loving, only
a whisper of water; lest I displease, lest
one petal be dislodged from its mooring.

With the patience of plants
and for plants, like steady crickets,
a hissing fills the night air nightly.

I souse every branch and twig
until I see globules of water,
gleaming eyeballs staring back at me.

But have you seen the face of foliage after a rain?

Have you seen the weakened nourished
with a feast? Heaven does a job
you cannot hope to match.

What they need is provided, plentiful
and sustained, the clouds quench
with superpowers, with nutrients,

Leaves, wiped clean, catching light, stalks turgid,
the orchids rubbernecking, but with
nary a glance of gratitude at my efforts.

Ay, I am a puny, unthanked god.