This week’s poem finds us amid a supermarket uprising. In Sharif S. Elmusa’s “A Field Day For Greens,” vegetables leap up in revolt against an observer’s senses – and, perhaps, on overabundance itself. I love this poem’s energy and imagery, its playfully trenchant sense of humor and the sudden chill of its final line. I’m also excited to report that Elmusa will serve as a guest editor for next week’s column.

Elmusa is a scholar, poet and professor emeritus at the American University in Cairo. In addition to academic publications on the environment, he co-edited “Grape Leaves: A Century of Arab American Poetry” and authored the poetry collection “Flawed Landscape.” His poems and essays have appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies, including Littoral Books’ “Enough!,” and he has presented his work at the Belfast Poetry Festival and Gulf of Maine Books. This week’s poem is from his manuscript “You Also Need to Drink From Places.”

A Field Day For Greens

By Sharif S. Elmusa

Chance favors the prepared mind,
said Pasteur. True, yet nothing from my past,
whether as chef or shopper, a farmer’s son
or political animal, had readied my mind
for the mutiny at this gigantic supermarket.

That place had always been a safe haven
for the five senses, a little Earth gathered
under one roof, till the other day
when I found myself caught up, stunned,
a witness to a riot of the elements. I saw and heard
them act as if their discontent had been brewing forever,
and a band of anarchist Greens seized the day
and barged into this showcase of capitalism
to stir up trouble.

It all began peacefully.
The blueberries darkly recalled their home and spine;
the melons flashed their red, clear-cut presence;
the carrots made pointed remarks about the fat cats;
and the apple cart was upset,
tossing the apples wildly in the aisles.

No life stayed still.

The haute dogs, beef and fish and ham
—the whole herd—bellowed they were game,
kicked off a stampede, egged on all along by the cluck cluck
of chickens. The blunt fronds of pineapples spread the word
that the fruits themselves were now grenades set to burst.
The seemingly tranquil garden was going to pot,
as I watched, frozen, an alien in my very flesh.

Megan Grumbling is a poet and writer who lives in Portland. Deep Water: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. “Field Day for Greens,” copyright © 2021 by Sharif S. Elmusa, appears by permission of the author.

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