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Glenna Luschei writes:
I grew up as a corn and bean farmer in Iowa and am now an avocado rancher in Central Coast, California. Like the Greeks, I believe that the land is sacred. One of my favorite readings is the "Giorgics" of Virgil, four poems about the life and activity of the farmer. Wherever I have lived, I have planted a garden, During my years in Colombia, I asked my mother to send me corn seeds from Iowa so I could have my own
corn patch. It did splendidly, but I never got to harvest it. One night, squatters walked away with the corn, stalks and all. They must have had a mouth-watering feast.
When I lived in North Carolina, I experimented with the most expensive crop, ginseng, a wild crop which is guarded in "ginseng" houses. They say you harvest ginseng at night by shooting an arrow at the glow it emits. I never got past the curiosity phase of my ginseng farm, but I did get a nice harvest of creasy greens in the spring at the bottom of my property. They were delicious watercress tendrils.
It made sense to me when I heard that in Chinese festivals the farmer and his plow walked directly behind the Emperor. I grew up with the same reverence for the taciturn Iowa farmer and writers of agriculture. I loved reading Sarmiento's "Facundo" when I was young and his ideas about "la fecundidad" of the land. I realized that fertility was prominent in my life, too. As a matter of fact, I have become pregnant whenever I have
passed beneath the Southern Cross, which has left me with a delightful family of Latinos to raise. They are now teachers and lawyers who have presented me with grandchildren who are gardeners and trophy-winners at fairs. Teaching my grandchildren about the miracle of plants and the animals they sustain inspired me to write "Flora & Fauna," a botany and a bestiary.
The book will be printed at Cal Poly's Shakespeare Press Museum, where I once taught, in a letterpress edition of one hundred.
Foolish One
Over piles of bituminous coal
the bee gathers honey from vetch
and yarrow.
Foolish one
to think that winter could ever come.
Apis florea
Tragedy Plums
We left Four Corners, our breakfast
Navajo Fry Bread.
New Mexico, Arizona. At the border
the Highway Patrol gave us a ticket.
Linda wrote my mom a postcard,
"California is the police state."
We wore bell bottoms
and miniskirts.
Everything different: palm trees
carpeted grocery stores.
We found a glamorous fruit
called Tragedy Plum.
It was the week of the Sharon
Tate murders.
Tragedy then, always tragedy.
We still walked in beauty.
Prunus maritima
Clivia
Named for Lady Clive of India.
Orange.
Brilliant as a raja.
Clivia minata
A Tale
The hang glider in my field
reported bear tracks
grand as dinner plates.
Today my roses bloom:
Fiesta Ware.
I dine from them.
My life's a tale larger
than life. The garlic
clove I inserted to cure
my ear ache swells up,
a tick with eight
sprouts.
Allium sativum
Artichoke
I can’t be hurt
for I am the artichoke
in prehistoric armor.
Peel off a plate.
I’ll grow another.
People know me for my heart
my fern,
my purple thistle.
Cynara cardunculus var.scolymus
Ars Poética
Must I go to the silver lining
and live out my happy ending
prepared to the fingertip?
No, don’t let me go prepared,
let me quaver in the double rainbow
waver as the bass
before swallowing the bright lure
sway as the acacia
yellow under winter rain.
Let me get my fingers wet
digging out rot
around the daffodil.
Narcissus poeticus
Alligator Pear
My father brought me an avocado
from far-off California.
What I loved at first slice
later claimed my life.
Alligator pirum
Collecting Nectar
Bees, striving for their zenith,
circle the mask
of the beekeeper
when he transports them to the ranch.
Bees prefer the lotus and lavender
to avocado but they pollinate
the blossoms.
I collect the nectar.
No fear.
A thrill to take part
in creation.
Bearing fruit fulfills the Kingdom.
Apis florea
Poetic Voices
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