Eyes to See
The flavor of carrots is generated by 36 genes;
29 of these genes,
inserted just so in the human genome,
confer near immortality--
works on 11% of us.
Folks don't react well, knowing
the people next door are going on without them.
Disaster on this scale is a cultural tsunami.
Not content with their brief
day in the sun, many of the 89%
burn, rend, scream, kill:
embrace death,
if only they can take some
immortals with them
to the vanishing point.
It's over. No one speaks of that time.
After the Mayfly Wars we begin the Live:
artworks on a grand scale,
literature refined to pellucidity,
but creative breakthroughs, not so much,
that's a game of youth
and there is so little of that.
Carrots, carrot genes,
everything tastes like carrots
broccoli, corn, potatoes, carrots
tomatoes, peas, raspberries, carrots
filet mignon, even human flesh:
carrots, all.
Then folks get desperate, but
nothing works
the taste is in us
not the foot
not
tires
sand
potting soil
asphalt
you can run, but, you know . . .
So I'm trying to remember that genetics shtick
and it's hard, oh so hard, after unnumbered years
of purposeless satiation,
but I'm teaching this kid,
and she's getting it, and I've never prayed so hard
for eggs, potatoes, rosemary,
onions, chicken, pepper, apples,
chocolate, artichokes, mango, mustard,
ANYTHING,
but no carrots.
David C. Kopaska-Merkel lives in a hollowed-out gourd hanging from a red oak out behind a house occupied by a colony of artists far more accomplished than he is. A leaf lacquerer by trade, he edits The Lacquered Leaf and dreams of a day when his gourd will be hung from a black walnut.
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