Asparagus, and: Strawberries
- Asparagus, and: Strawberries
ASPARAGUS
Asparagus is not just a plant or a bunch of letters. It is now a poetical subject. Thesauri have no entry for asparagus: It is complete, entirely itself. Called “fingers of the dead” by me, here, the French used to prefer points d’amour, thinking that a bit of asparagus makes you want to have sex. It just lies there, indifferent. Its story is old and ages best uncovered. Ancient Egyptians thought these digits a nice gift for the pharaoh or a god. In Rome, Augustus had Asparagus Fleets that crossed the wine-dark sea, bringing the best of it back. Most decent renaissances from Europe to China cultivated it along with the flashier trades: art, science, conquest, etc. Still Life with Asparagus (1697): Cream in color, a bundleof asparagus tilts on a table, scored with shadows. The blackbackground conceals allbut the light’s precise touchon the half-moon of its skin. Really, there is no better mascot for tradition and its many returns. Not shy or easily forgotten, [End Page 113] asparagus damn near leaps out of the ground and adds itself to your shopping cart. [End Page 114]
STRAWBERRIES
In black and white, the young Judy Garland steps from a bus into the summer air, then takes out a bright red strawberry. Right to the camera, she says “Strawberries are not just fruit or a bunch of letters: They are now poetical subjects, and boy does California know its strawberries.” Then, after a bite and wink, she smiles as “Enjoy a Strawberry” appears across the screen. –––––
Rising from the ground on fertilized soil, picked by fingers on imported hands, gently sheened in the artificial rain, a miracle of modern agriculture, the strawberries arrive on a clamshell like the manufactured ovaries of Venus, a metal conch held to the ear. Chilean- Virginian, they bestride the hemispheres and taste of an ideal wrought into life. They are.
The drapes part in Oz. The wizard is fruit from imaginary fields with real weeds. He tells young Dorothy to just take a bite, click her heels, and go straight to Hollywood. Turning green to red, the traffic lights on Ventura Boulevard ripen. Each one began as a mere spark: like her, like you. Out in the fields, the squirming strawberries are cocoons blushed with rouge, set for their big debut. [End Page 115]
matthew valades co-hosts a poetry podcast called BYOP, which is available on iTunes, SoundCloud, and Tumblr. For a living, he writes poems and helps science editors keep it together. He studied poetry at Wesleyan University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
