Smashed Sidewalk Carrots

A Poem

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I wrote this on a walk, shortly after listening to a podcast with

Joy Sullivan

where she talks about what she beautifully calls “tiny tenders.”

I say that the base of every poem is a tiny tender. It’s one small detail. It’s one small thing that you have witnessed that you are now going to give reverent attention to on the page. And so I think it’s really an exercise of that reverence of attention. You know, I just remember in the loneliness of being on the road, standing in the sunlight, washing tomatoes in my sink. And I looked down and I thought, My God, I’ve never seen anything so beautiful as these tomatoes. And I never want to lose this reverence for these dumb tomatoes. But for me, it was about that, the reverence of attention that we can bring to those small delights and how we can stretch them out and give them to one another.

-

Joy Sullivan

on the Good Life Project Podcast

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Smashed Sidewalk Carrots

I assume they were raw

I’d be surprised if they were cooked

I saw three of them on my walk to the park

One by the playground

One by the Citi bike rack

And one by a bus stop

The carrots were far enough apart

That they could have been dropped by the same toddler

Or perhaps different toddlers

Perhaps they weren’t dropped by a toddler, but an adult

The size of the carrots made me think of a toddler

Happily munching on an afternoon snack on the way home

Perhaps the carrots were dropped for an entirely different reason

By an adult who doesn’t mind littering

I don’t blame the toddler for littering

If it was indeed a toddler who left behind these carrots

They’re still learning and growing

But then again, adults are still learning and growing too

Maybe, someone is trying to catch a bunny?

We did have some roosters on the loose in this area once

One would think I live on a farm or ranch

And not the Upper West Side

New York is a kind of wilderness though

Ever-changing and unfurling

Maybe the carrots are a version of breadcrumbs

Meant to reunite a fairytale family

Perhaps a family of bunnies

I hope they find their way home

Whoever they may be

To wherever the trail of carrots leads them.