Ethylene by D. Wyatt Anderson

Plumes of ethylene settle around my fast ripening oranges
“What is it?”
They seem to say
“This isn’t the sixth day,
don’t let us remain until morning”
Chemically coordinated abundance

Wild oak trees keep this tucked away in their whorled brow
and somehow know to wait,
until together they carpet the ground with their starchy progeny;
a mast year

Cicadas too, will hatch in a deafening roar every 17 years
They must keep time in the shallow layers of topsoil,
counting the frost and thaw

Daily bread comes in waves,
if you learn to read the seasons

My eighth-grade biology teacher knew this.
He would hide his bananas around the house
in an attempt to dis-coordinate their breathy maturation.

Mid-western congregants grace unlocked sedans and minivans
with goliath zucchinis

Look, a table is prepared for you,
If you hold it yourself, it will truly rot away

Wyatt is a novice poet, currently living and studying in Loma Linda, CA. He writes primarily on the intersections of theology, botany, and medicine.