There’s silence in the land
the sounds around are wind or rain or sleet or snow
I sit in the lee of the furrowed field and bide my time
as the seeds I plant begin to grow.
Vegetable (noun)
mid-15c., “non-animal life,” originally any plant, from vegetable (adj.); specific sense of “plant cultivated for food, edible herb or root” is first recorded 1767. Meaning “person who leads a monotonous life” is recorded from 1921; sense of “one totally incapacitated mentally and physically” is from 1976.
I remember on that baking day when a good friend said I think she is a vegetable, you know, the way she sits and rocks and doesn’t talk. In case, I didn’t know what he talked about he rocked too.
I remember another time when dressed in easter best and plastered social smiles, you talked of them and they and vegetables as if it rhymed. I hugged my daughter tight, grabbed my son and perfectly polite left before the eggs were found
I remember in generations down the line the midwife told my mum it’s best he’s dead. alive he’d be a vegetable
When I hear that word said that way I think of 50 years of harm
Instead of silence where I am asked to stay I respectfully suggest some other words like person, daughter, child
the unsung 