The moon faces West, wanes, and opens her mouth in a yawn. Opal basil’s dark purple veins love the tender lighting and glow. Somewhere in the woods a fawn is hidden by its mother in a large stand of grass. Sun rises hazy in between bouts of rain. In this early and this quiet, everything is imbued with a sense that it is magical: the low hum of the greenhouse lighting, the way a mighty wind rips at the plastic exterior inches from my face as I harvest. Pick one sprig, then another, but don’t break off the branch’s tip from which it grows.
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Tova Kranz is a writer, editor, and farmer living in North Carolina. She studied English at Florida State University and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Her poems have been published in 86 Logic, Blue Heron Review, and elsewhere. Her poem “Fermentation” was nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Her musings on farming can be found at tovakranz.substack.com.
