2016 INDEX

Sunday, April 2, 2023

April 2, 2023 - Let's Pay the Taxes with Asparagrus

 

 

Poem, Tax Time, and Asparagus

      Recently I submitted this poem and was surprised when I got a rejection slip.  I'd had good luck before with it. So, feeling bad for myself I decided to subject you'all to it since I am in a new life now and since it is tax time and fresh asparagus cutting season here in the Carolinas.

     For breakfast this morning, I had sauteed asparagus tips in butter with two eggs over easy on the side.  Then, I rounded my plate out with some homemade cranberry sauce which has ground cloves, cinnamon, and pecan halves. [When I make my cranberry sauce, I add a splash of Cointreau when it is cool right before jarring up.]

 

           Let’s Pay the Taxes with Asparagus

 

I shove the signed tax return into the bill basket.

         It’s the same every year – pay, pay, pay.

 

I tug on my rubber garden boots, mentally scrounging

         for the money to pay, pay, pay.

 

Sun warms my dismal spirits.  Cut back on groceries,

         and eat lunch in so we can pay, pay, pay.

 

The mint is fragrant, the chives are shivering,

         and the asparagus is up! Hurray, Hurray, Hurray!

 

Among old stubble and encroaching weeds tender tips push through

         in response to the sun’s rays, rays, rays.

 

Succulent green spears, from rhizomes once planted

         in forgotten autumn days, days, days.

 

Cupboards bare – groceries meager. Yet, we live like kings

         on asparagus, three times a day, day, day.

 

Taxes mailed by deadline making us poor.  But, we’re rich

         with extra asparagus to give away, away, away.

 

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