(back)

Grandy's

There is one green bean
resting in my side of corn.
I didn’t even order green beans.
It’s just a lonely legume
on a plate of “country cookin’”

And I can’t decide
if this is some sort of flaw
or a little extra bonus
Like the prize in a box of Cracker Jacks
And it stares at me,
practically daring me to enjoy it.

It has to be a metaphor.
“One lone green bean
at odds with a world
of yellow corn”

William Carlos Williams
would have recognized it
in an instant.

He would have caught the joke
or scraped it off the plate
But I guess I’m not that smart.

As I sit here hungry
wrestling with the metaphysical
ramifications of my single steak meal.

I want to stand up
and shout “Hallelujah!”
as the universe orders itself before me.

Want to take this symbol
and start a religion.
Want to see the shock
as the world reaches understanding.
Want to breath this gift
into the collective conscience.
Want to open doors of perception
that were locked to man
before the coming of the sacred bean!

but the world may never know
the spiritual significance
of one lone green bean
at odds with a world
of yellow corn.

And perhaps like stonehenge,
the great pyramids, and Must-See-TV;
Some mysteries will simply never be explained.