The miracle

The little tomato plant a realtor left 

on my porch is thriving

in the bigger pot of an old orchid 

     for whom 

the clock stopped ticking

during my monthlong wandering when 

the G-son forgot to water it and 

instead drowned 

      two fake palms. 

In just a week the tomato branches burst 

upward a good inch and 

look much greener and brighter 

than that wimpy slice of life looked 

      on its arrival.

Of course this is all nature‘s 

chemistry but chemistry is such 

      a miracle.

The plant turns sun, water--thin air 

--into food, hormones 

that make the leaves grow bigger 

and all that radiance burst

into red delicious jewels. 

     What a trick!

That same trick going on in me though

 in the opposite direction. 

Every cell in my body now whispering, S.O.S! 

I didn’t imagine being a widow. 

My man knew it. Said, this will be all yours to handle alone

      some day.  

He meant these four kids. 

This large house without them and

       him. 

He didn’t wish that on me.  

But saw it coming. 

      That lightening bolt. 

I think of him at unexpected times. 

Tonight during a program about oceans 

when I hear the long moans of whales, 

not the bright notes of his trumpet 

that shriek like a dolphin rising, easy and free, 

      on the breeze.

No, the whales sing low and slow

about the end of time, about 

     their grief, wild and 

breaking silence, stalking 

     like hunger.