Artichoke

I’ve awoken from a restful sleep with the sun streaming into my bedroom, the gentle rustle of the traffic and a light heart. A new day begins.

I’ve been lying in bed reading and thinking a little about the last four months and how much things have changed. How blessed I am to have had the time, space and solitude to think, feel and grow.

Artichoke

The nubbed leaves
Come way
In a tease of green, thinning
Down to the membrane:
The quick, purples,
Beginnings of the male.

Then the slow hairs of the heart:
The choke that guards its trophy,
It vegetable goblet.
The meat of it lies, displayed,
Up-ended, al dente,
The sub-root aching in its oil.

Robin Robertson
'Painted Field'