Watching squash grow
I lashed the bamboo tripod
for pole beans to crawl but
a squirrel-planted mystery
hijacked the mound then
exploded in late summer
with sandpapery umbrella
leaves and muscular vines.
When it sprouted five-pointed
orange star blossoms we
guessed the rodents harvested
pumpkin seeds from last
year's jack-o-lantern for a
winter snack, and we started
to plan Thanksgiving dessert.
The hose-like vines snake
through the garden over
taking tomatoes, peppers,
eggplant, string beans, basil,
tendrils creeping up the fence,
a green pyramid whose leaves
cast a jungle-like shade.
Bumble bees pollinate
the plate-sized flowers
which in a day curl in
on themselves. A small
green ovule swells at their
base getting plumper,
yellower day by day,
swallowing the shriveled
petals until they are
brown flakes at the globe's
bottom, its girth
bulging from bulb
to yellow balloon almost
before our amazed eyes.
In the morning just yellow,
by dusk green radiates
down the curves, and dreams
of pie turn to thoughts
of sliced squash sauteed
in butter or baked side dishes
by fall's first frost.
Eric Chiles, a graduate of I.U.'s graduate writing program and a former newspaper editor, is an adjunct professor of writing and journalism. He is the author of the chapbook "Caught in Between" (Desert Willow Press), and his poetry has appeared in such journals as The American Journal of Poetry, Blue Collar Review, Canary, Main Street Rag, Plainsongs, Rattle, Sport Literate, San Pedro River Review, Tar River Poetry, and Third Wednesday.