'cumber

A little produce from the planter. I wonder about the cumber part of the name, if it relates to the way the vines cloy and swallow all that they cling to in their efforts to find suitable anchors for their heavy fruit.

I wound up in Jackson Heights, Queens a few weeks ago and was astonished by the room-sized trellises many had built in their front yards. Those are my kind of people, even if their creations make the little thing I've rigged up look ridiculous. Made of three ladder lattices, it tilts to the side on its slim sticks, but the water bottle gourd plant, in a storm of growth, has taken it for all it's worth as it expands in every direction.

I'm a little shocked, someone suggested I get some kind of support hose for the gourds, I suppose to make little hammocks for each one in order to reduce the strain on the vine and allow the fruits to grow as large as possible. Talk about cumbered.

I don't think I'll be able to make a fuss about gourd sizes now, not with the new moon approaching and making my skin crawl with the folly of every sentimental bauble I've kept around until now. I'll take the gourds as gravity and the seasons makes them.