Brassica
One plant in center of a spiral:
broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, kale,
cauliflower, kohlrabi, & collard greens.
Brassica oleracea & its companions,
Brassica rapa & Brassica nigra
of mustards & turnips.
But let’s just look at the one:
the oleracea, the mother plant.
Wild cabbage. With shallow branching roots
& long leaves like fingers, knee-height.
Scrubby, shrubby. In bloom, inflorescences
buttery yellow. A mild, hearty plant, not
too thirsty, resilient even in cold,
finding sun even behind clouds.
The care of humans did this. We looked
at the plant & decided which parts we loved most.
If we loved leaves, we picked the plants
with the biggest leaves & thousands of years later
we have kale. & we make fun of kale, remembering
it as only decorative, snugged between greasy pizza
at a pizza buffet, as if it wasn’t such nurture over nature,
as if we didn’t pass our care through generations, to bring
these leaves here to us. Here is what we loved:
terminal buds became cabbage,
lateral buds became Brussels sprouts,
stems became kohlrabi,
stems & flowers (such passion!) became broccoli,
& the flower alone became cauliflower.
This plant of human love, human patience.
This plant, the best parts of what we can do.
We loved & cultivated & loved & then:
we all forgot.
We saw each cultivar as its own plant. We joked
about the similarity of between cabbage & Brussels
(the same, just smaller!) not realizing how literally
true that was.
Brassica oleracea, wild cabbage, still exists—
found on the sides of hills, defiant & steadfast in hard ground.
Brassica are resilient, not flinching in the face of wind & cold,
keeping for months in a root cellar, a winter boon.
Imagine a brown stew bright with green in the darkest part
of winter. Imagine how it reminds us of the sun, of warmth.
Remember how much affection brought us to broccoli at all.
Broccoli, especially, a wonder. Most people like flowers,
can find beauty in a leaf. But the stem?
Imagine seeing flowers & stem & realizing
you want the whole thing. You need the whole thing.