. Saturday morning readers share:
Sam Barbee and Jenny Bates
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Tomato
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I pass my time well,
but if a man is worth his salt,
he will learn his season.
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I hope to die some indigo night—
un-diagnosed—preferably,
in my tomato garden.
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I wait content in this fertile space.
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I water each vine.
Spray rattles the dry leaves
and collects on stem bristles.
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Tonight I know, plucking
ripe fruit is kind: by autumn,
so much rots, ignored.
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Sam Barbee
from That Rain We Needed, Press 53, Winston-Salem NC; © 2016
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Tomato was also a Poetry in Plain Sight poster poem. I grew up in Wilmington, and am still an autumn-season beach-bum. I’ve lost my enthusiasm for fishing, but the solitude continues to delight me.
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Additional poetry by Sam Barbee at Verse and Image:
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Trimmed in Black
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The bears came back yesterday then
last night you spun a black ribbon in
my hair did I mention?
the bears were black too if I could
only remember the words the turned
tune of words as you wove that ribbon
in and out and through my braid
the bears were in color as was the dream
I tried to stitch all the hues mostly the black
into the wind like trimming a tree with
memory or wishing I had umber bat wings
webbing I could spread and catch your vow
or the sound of any how hung high
in a tree so the breeze will always touch them.
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Jenny Bates
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I’m going through a wringer of a time in life right now, but … in reality I hope to disappear, but I would also go for becoming a Pine Marten! and really? I am my environment on the mountain and the fellow creatures I live with so the photo is the inspiration for the poem…
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Additional poetry by Jenny Bates at Verse and Image:
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Thank you for visiting VERSE and IMAGE:
. . . . . every Friday I present one or two poems I’ve read this week that particularly speak to me;
. . . . . every Saturday I present one or two poems submitted by YOU, my readers.
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– Bill
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V E R S E and I M A G E 
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