11 Comments


  1. Love the image here, it made me smile to picture it.


    1. Hordes of ruminating plants, is there a sci fi story in there somewhere?


      1. Could be! They do look eldritch. Every one of them points in a different direction until they straighten up.


  2. wonderful imagery!


  3. Oh yes, this is particularly glorious.

    I had to look it up, of course. Is it Allium tricoccum? A plant of much cultural and mythical interest. Ramp. Presumably no connection at all, other than rhyme, with champ.


    1. No, ‘fraid not. Just ordinary top-heading garlic which have escaped the garden and seeded themselves all over the yard. Ramps do grow around here, but not on this mountain.


  4. GROWING

    Abuela would have joined them in raising
    beak-like stalks toward the sky, in praise
    of an apothecary rooted among the bramble.

    “In garlic we trust,” she would intone while
    wrapping crushed garlic moistened by spittle
    on our aching little fingers, our battle scars.

    Like wild garlic heads rising from untilled
    gardens, we raced to grow beyond littleness,
    beyond fearful cowering, and found fingers

    to point at the blank sky that would have given
    us rain on our demand for clouds to break
    into torrents drenching parched soil and bodies

    of naked lads and lasses tittering in the rain,
    their necklaces of garlic bulbs and parts dangling.

    —Albert B. Casuga
    07-08-11


Comments are closed.