Solanum
Dangerous and beautiful,
tasty and deadly,
nature’s guessing games...
When I was a child
my mother told me that
her parents and other wise adults
warned her never to eat tomatoes.
After all, it was well known
that all parts of the tomato plant,
especially the ripe red fruit
so loved by birds and horn worms,
were deadly poison.
Genetic bits bind
the natural world together,
we *****Sapiens distantly to
the genus Solanum,
including that tomato I mentioned,
flourishing perhaps in your garden,
dying in mine,
flattened by hail and record rains.
Eventually some brave soul,
forgotten to history,
bit into one,
juice dribbled past her smiling lips
and down her chin;
she survived.
Antediluvian genetics...
Might it be possible
that the primordial soup
imparted a tiny drop or two
of Solanum juice to us humans?
After all, we are
beauty and danger,
juiciness,
compassion
narcissism,
light and the darkness,
joy, anger, and grief
in varying measure.
If so, the tomato prevails.
The rule then is:
eat the fruit and all is well.
Eat the greens
in an otherwise lovely salad
and be dead before dessert.
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