My day started when I dropped my untasted venti Americano on my front door step.  It was followed (after the curse words) by a re-run of the Starbucks trip followed by several meetings spread throughout the day. It wasn’t that bad really. I mean after I got the coffee down.

I took with me on this day a slim volume called Going to Seed Dispatches from the Garden and a file folder of some of my old poetry. I used Going to Seed as a palate cleanser. (OK so some of my old stuff wasn’t that bad. It was bad, but not bad if you know what I mean. No Vogon-worthy verses.)

I did love Goodrich’s book I have to say. What a delightful sense of humor he has. And most of his stuff is just a few stanzas, something I prefer to be honest.

Going to Seed
        by Charles Goodrich

        January evenings, I sit by the fire, salivating over the latest
fashion magazines—Burpee's, Wayside Gardens, Johnny's Selected
Seeds—dreaming that I'm still a young stud, still up for double-
digging a new bed, getting it on with the latest hybrids.

        Once I was biodynamic. I used to do a lot of heavy mulching.
I tried my hand at companion plantings, played around with French
intensive. There was a time I'd dibble seed into any dirt I came
across.
        But I'm done sowing wild oats. I'm not planning to graft a
branch on some other guy's tree. Anyway, who cares who can raise
the biggest zucchini. I'm happy just looking at the pictures.

A delight heh?

Here’s another that’s more reflective.

The House of February

        On the far side of the river, there's a grove of old
cottonwoods, ragged trees with worm-splintered crowns. Some have
toppled into one another's arms, and all are bare now in early
February. Here and there in the crotches of the branches, the canopy
is clotted with big, messy baskets—nests of the great blue herons.
        When the trees begin budding in another month, the birds
will return, carrying sticks as long as their beaks. They'll line the nests
with feathers and moss, lay clutches of eggs, and hatch their naked,
ungainly chicks.
        But today, I don't want to think about eggs, or hopes, or
starting over. I just want to savor the desolation of those trees, the
slate sky, the empty nests.

I really do like prose poetry of this kind and caliber.