The Gleaning

This time of year, in years past, Christine and I would spend a week or two on Martha’s Vinyard.
We have some memories.
In retrospect I have come to regret this, as I think that caterpillar may have made an interesting pet.

The Gleaning

We stepped into a garden store
  where waterfalls of flowers poured,
  from the ceiling to the floor,
Where cement Saints and Buddhas adored
  a bushel basket full of corn,
I said to Christine;
  "Corn meant maize to the Indians, and wheat to the British,
  although no one ever calls Indian corn British maize,
  like maize were corn and corn were wheat,
What loco in parentis taught our forebears how to eat?"

Now they were sandy, the corns,
  as if picked up from the ground,
  like a rutabaga or carrot,
  not as wholesome corn is found,
True, stalks will bend in a strong wind,
  to grow so on at an un-right angle,
  too low to greet the combines tines,
And the imagination easily minds,
  of wagons overflowing their bins,
  or the bump of a wheel spilling excess yield back again,

I said to Christine;
  "By ancient law these are the right of the poor,
  who come at dusk to glean their score,
  that they may know harsh hunger something less, ,
So how they come to this bushel basket here?
  could one poor soul have sold these ears to the shopkeeper,
  from what he had of his rightful share
  in deference to himself ever shucking another cob?"

Since priced by ear and not by weight,  
  I didn’t mind sand in my freight,
And there and then bought two, by the front door,
  which transformed me into a fantastic thing,
  for while as any of God’s made beasts I’d two ears before,
  I now left an unnatural, an Argus audientes sporting four,

On our way home we pondered;
  "Who is this, ‘the poor?’
  who desires gleaning corns no more?
  I live on a budget, so I could be needy, doubtful though,
And I’ve met homeless who deny it still,
  the need for charity and good will,"

Once home I washed the ears and shucked
  then stopped, declaring ‘Oh my, yuck!’
As the sight of a caterpillar, green the size of my finger
  digested me of all Christian thoughts,
Once showing Christine, I did not linger
  to march those ears a quarter mile,
  past where by roadside farmers piled their compost,
To a field, once a maze of corn, having since been shorn,
And invoking Our New England Yankee God
  chucked the gleanings back from whence they came