Sunset Through the Pines, or, Food as Art
Roger Mitchell
There’s a long moment, maybe twenty minutes,
when the sun falls down behind the pines
and the sky turns the color every painter
in the world has tried to copy. I’m not
a painter. Still, as a poet, I have a duty here,
despite the dog barking in the distance,
the catbird mewing beside me in a bush.
I’m sitting out on the screened porch eating
a plateful of steamed fresh pole beans, perfect
and soft green. But, wait, the sun is sliding
down the large canvas in back of the pines,
reminding me, I think, of Clyfford Still.
The green shoots crunch quietly against my teeth.
This may be the most perfect moment life
has seen fit to send my way, and I waste it
on a few tubes of photosynthesized light.
Hunger is a toad, I realize, squat and knobby,
but perhaps it wouldn’t be amiss to point out
that sunset washed over these beans every day.
Maybe I did see it poorly, but I ate it wholly.