Pumpkin

 

'Pumpkin' (1981) by Yayoi Kusama

[Pumpkin]

 

what do we see in the pumpkin

there amidst morning tendrils

that wasn’t there yesterday

 

skin hard in the round light

where it rests on the ground found

amidst sounds of grass, wind and leaf

 

cut open the pumpkin to find

more sun firm fibre condensed

and seed chambers in numbers

 

admittedly often happily

there’s nothing to say

just us and the pumpkin out in the open

 

where mood improves

in the presence of this little planet

hard outside not that hard inside

 

but what does she see in the pumpkin

holding it tight like a child

lonely in the clinic and out

 

all you need is love

and the creation and the pumpkin

the ultimate anti-depressant

 

what in wartime she knew

was main sustenance, aid to

all thought that will get her through

 

the pumpkin’s humanness

tenderness humourousness

unpretentiousness

 

buried in clumps of compost

pumpkinseeds

return curved in great green clouds

 

only then what do you see in

the pumpkin that would be something

really would be something

 

a simple question simply answered

not simply a suggestion but

an appealing manifestation

 

plain as day warts and all

big as they come all sizes

protuberant or else squat

 

or just pumpkin pumpkin

pumpkin pumpkin pumpkin

cut from its cord for the kitchen table

 

soup prolifically squashed

roast pronouncedly sweet

pie productively sliced