Here, the Sun

Laura Budofsky Wisniewski

Here, the sun 

means something to us

deranged as we are 

by our darknesses.

And the soil 

with its murmurings and moods. 

We have a thousand words for dig.  

When the earthworms sing, 

we sing 

and when the vines climb 

we almost blind ourselves

staring at the sky. 

Here, we pull the slug 

from the soft leaf of lettuce 

as if we are peeling dreams 

from a small sleeping child. 

Here, we cradle 

a pea pod like a bird’s egg, 

holding it out, its perfect greenness 

proof that a hand is more 

than a hand. Look at this,

and we mean 

the small round peas

beneath the luminous skin. Oh, 

we want to say

there’s something inside something, always.

Right? 

But here, for that,

we have no words.

Laura Budofsky Wisniewski is the author of Sanctuary, Vermont (Orison Books), which won the 2020 Orison Poetry Prize and the New England Poetry Club’s 2022 Sheila Margaret Motton Book Prize. Read more.

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