Aletha, the Cherry Tomato

Aletha

By Debora Rorvig

In June I bought a tomato plant to sit out on my patio

for fifteen-dollars and ninety-five.

A tall sturdy sort with a fine thick stock and twelve little green tomatoes

dangling from her branches.

The clerk said “she’s a corker!”

As it turns out, my plus-size girl

doesn’t like my patio.

She screams for water twice-a-day;

 pouts if she doesn’t get it.

Why she’s even threaten hari-kari more than once!

And still, just twelve little tomatoes cling to her leafy frame…

no more.

I think she’s into family-planning

or something of the sort.

In late July an unexpected visitor popped into my herb garden for a cup of chamomile tea with mint

and some spicy conversation with the chives,

Petite little thing she was; really just a sprout.

Mother used to call her kind ‘volunteers’;

a name I’m not so fond of

as though tomato plants and stalks of corn would step forward and sign

their names on the dotted line to join

some well-ordered regiment of vegetables…

Well maybe a cornstalk would do that; what with their love for standing straight

in even rows…but not this little tomato plant.

(Albeit when I think of it,

perhaps all vegetables should unite and fight

just to save their skins

from monsters like Monsanto;

who…well I’ll save this subject for

another soapbox and time.)

So I called her Aletha instead.

Aletha was a preemie…as tomato plants go;

but I gave her bit of mulch and tended her with the same love

(I’m lying now…MORE love than my pouty patio-girl!)

Well it turns out Aletha comes

from a long line of hardy cherry-tomato forbearers

who thrive in poor soil and given the chance

will shoot up toward the sun.

Now when she and I stand back- to –back

 to see who’s grown the tallest,

Aletha wins hands down--

 even if I stand on tippy-toes in my plastic garden clogs.

She towers over me and patio-girl

and boasts of lots of baby cherry-tomatoes

(I think she’s Catholic, or maybe Mormon;

Whatever…her family size suits me just fine.

Who am I to judge a tomato by her religion,

or lack thereof?

And so the lessons here, I think

are many.

I’ll spare you all my platitudes.

But suffice to say;

you can just never tell

about tomatoes…

 

And that goes for people too!

 

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