Every Friday, a happy smiling man <br />who says he’s a mixture of Spain, Trinidad and England <br />delivers a bag of organic vegetables <br />and a bag of organic fruit, and <br />it’s a bit like a child’s Christmas bran-tub adventure – <br />some strange vegetables I’ve never seen before <br />and would never have dared to buy; <br />or eat, if I found them growing in the garden… <br /> <br />but it’s worth it for the carrots alone – <br />they taste, well, OK, like carrots used to taste.. <br />and each week, they come from a different grower, so <br />they arrive clean and smooth one week, <br />clotted with earth another, but <br />as Rilke might say, rich with carrot-ness.. <br /> <br />and I clean them with a respect which they <br />and the sheer living greenness of the greens <br />and other vegetables naturally demand of me <br />so that vegetable-cleaning <br />which used to be a chore done with attention <br />only at half strength, is now something more - <br /> <br />and in this mood, almost overlooked small great miracles of life <br />just happen of themselves – <br />two weeks ago, I watched amazed <br />as my two hands of themselves <br />devised a new way of cleaning carrots – <br />the hands reversed their roles: left hand <br />now held the scouring pad, diagonally, <br />and the right hand spiralled the carrot <br />in the pad… and lo! those etched horizontal lines <br />of dirt were perfectly removed.. <br /> <br />and the isness of the carrot <br />and the isness of its servant <br />were together one silent song <br />where, it seemed, <br />the forgotten met the remembered <br />and rejoiced.<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/0011-scrubbing-carrots/
