A Poem by Anita Pulier

Metropolitan Farming

 

 

First the bulbs from a third grade

school catalog that quietly

died in cracked coffee cups,

 

then, propped on toothpicks,

the avocado pit

stretching its desperate roots

 

into stale water before

bidding farewell to the disgruntled potato,

too busy rotting to notice,

 

next came the goldfish and hamsters,

showered with attention and treats

until they too keeled over.

 

And so we taught

our city children responsibility,

the wonder of life-giving forces,

how to cope with disappointment,

 

the art of pushing on.

 

 

“Metropolitan Farming” is from my FLP Chapbook Sounds Of Morning

 

 

For years Anita raced from a New Jersey tennis court at 7 am to a legal court in NJ or Manhattan or to her law office in Brooklyn. The most poetic writing she encountered was not hers but that of an adversary who wrote, “The plaintiff’s argument holds no fruit.” Happily, when she retired she traded legal writing for poetry. Anita’s poems have been published in many journals and in four anthologies as well as three poetry chapbooks and recently her first full length book The Butcher’s Diamond, all of which were published by Finishing Line Press.