Day 504/Ceasefire Day 34

Tomatoes, favas, white potatoes, kale.
Zucchini, red potatoes, chile peppers, avocados.
Bell peppers. Lettuces. How did they grow?
How were they protected? How
did they survive the fetid air, 
the dust, the smoke, the contamination?
How did they come to life
with no water, foul water, salt water?
And who tended them?  Who harvested them?
Now they’re displayed on stands
at a market the people have organized.
Now people survey them, take them
in their hands, hold them to their faces
so they can smell them, feel them
against their skin.  Beyond the market, 
ruins of the city:  but that’s not
|what they’re looking at now, the ones
who walk among these stands,
looking at vegetables, thinking
of how they’ll cook them,
eat them.  The grayness of bulldozed
lives, fallen buildings, crushed dreams
is near, but it is not everything:  everything
now includes these offerings of the earth
and of resistance. These ripened promises.