Vox Populi
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Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Ode to Sungolds
Amid the slow wilt of weeds in my yard’s
most dormant & dustiest corner, a new
creeper appeared overnight.
That thing grew & grew, lighting the place
a bright new green, until, one noon, the sun
hit a golden glow — a tomato!
A yellow, thumb-sized & plump & pretty
& round perfectly ripe little thing. Then
ten, then dozens.
Sungolds, coughed my old neighbor, a bird
shat the seed.
So, here’s to butter & olive oil, garlic, basil,
oregano & amber bursts a-sizzle in my skillet.
Such blessings —straight out of bird shit.
~~~~
Copyright 2026 Laure-Anne Bosselaar
Laure-Anne Bosselaar is a Belgian-American poet, translator, professor, and former poet laureate of Santa Barbara, California. Her many collections of poetry include Lately: New and Selected Poems (Sungold, 2024).
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Oh, I love this tomato poem! What a magical world we live in!
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A magical world, to have such things as sungold tomatoes. https://madvillepublishing.com/product/the-blessed-isle/
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Delightful! There’s nothing like volunteers to uplift us.
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Yes! Ode to transformative shit! And the edible red philosopher’s stones, simmered and served on toast with a side of burrata! Love this, Laure-Anne…xo
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oh that last line! yep, right out of the shit, such incredible deliciousness! thanks for serving that delicacy up!
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Ah I wish I could send you all a handful of my sun-sweetened Sungolds to thank you for your generous comments!
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A beautiful poem, Laure-Anne. Makes me think. My wife, Val, is a gardener too. She is also an oncology nurse. When an uninvited plant pops-up between her rows of vegetables, she transfers it to a special place for visitors, shat or windblown. Usually, the transplant is a wild flower. If it is an invasive, she uproots it and tosses it away. She makes the flowers into bouquets, takes them to work, places them near her patients infusion chairs and waits for the Karma.
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Than you so much!
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My wife Valerie keeps a space in her garden for “Travelers” like Laure-Anne’s little sungolds, and when one pops up, shat or windblown, she transplants it that special place. Once it’s identifiable, and it’s not a weed or an invasive, she treats it like she’d wanted it in her garden from the start. Usually, its a wild flower. She makes them into beautiful and unusual bouquets. She is an oncology nurse so she takes them to the infusion room and sets them for the patients to see. Sometimes her patients cough, where did you buy those beautiful flowers?
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Thank you for sharing with us these wonderful gestures of Valerie in her/your garden’, of Valerie and her garden’s surprises & beauties. And thank you Valerie!
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Brava! Could not love it more!
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I adore how something as glorious as a grape tomato is sired by shit!
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I needed this one and began to reminisce about my favorite volunteers in the garden. Thank you. Michael, for this wonderful group I join on line that helps me find the strength the get up each morning.
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Thank you, Barb.
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I needed this bright poem on this dark day! Thank you, Laure-Anne!
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Laure-Anne, this poem warmed my old cockles. Yes, birds shit seeds and the results are often spectacular. It’s such a joy to read your poems that take an (almost) every-day event and make it pure delight or meaningful. Love your lines. So, here’s to sungolds!
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Baron Wormser defined a poet as a spirit guide. This is certainly true of Laure-Anne and her poems, whether of a farmer’s market in Antwerp, or the bird scat that blesses her with tomatoes in more recent days. Wormser wrote that “Poetry admits and dwells with our humanity.” Laure-Anne also shows us here, how poetry can dwell with the glories of an unexpected fruit, or the welcome output of a bird. Bosselaar unflattens life in her backyard, much as Wormser advocated. I think he would take flight with her poem, as so many of us now have.
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Thanks, Jim. I would not have thought of comparing the two poets, but I’m glad you show how their spirits overlap.
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Dear Jim. How kind of you — and thank you! Baron and I taught at two different writers’ conferences together and had developed a light-hearted and enthusiastic friendship. He taught me so much (of course) and he kept asking me about French and Flemish poetry. This was all about 30 years ago — and Baron, his beloved wife Janet & I enjoyed each other’s company very much I remember. Thank you also for so kindly speaking of us together in the same comments — I am moved, I am, by your attentive generosity. A few times today, thinking of Baron, I blew kisses to “the “behind the sky” as my son would say when he was 4 or 5. And thought dearly about the brilliant thinker and writer, and the utterly kind “mensch” Baron was — & whose work Michael so generously shares with us here on VP…
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As Baron now inspires me from “behind the sky,” you inspire from in front of the sky… you both use(d) words to fertilize our spirits
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Thanks, Laure-Anne.
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What a blessing this poem is to remind us of the unexpected places our blessings come from. And the lush images are such a delight to feel on the tongue as I read. Thank you, Laure-Anne, for your beautiful poems.
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Thanks, Mike. I love her poems as well.
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Thank you, dear dear Michael!
Laure-Anne
Laure-Anne Bosselaar https://laureanne.net https://poets.org/poet/laure-anne-bosselaar
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Love your work, Laure-Anne!
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Nature never fells to gift and delight us without charge. The surprise and the unexpected gives me hope to carry on at times and birds are often the messenger. Lovely poem.
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Isn’t it, though?
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Thanks for the moment to laugh. A joy to read.
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Thanks, John.
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Oh, how I needed this poem this morning! It’s another keeper by Laure-Anne Bosselaar.
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And she has so many keepers.
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…here’s to butter & olive oil, garlic, basil,oregano & amber bursts a-sizzle…
Laure-Anne, how important it is to find gold in “dusty dormant corners”. To connect with the poetry and scents of good cooking, especially in such dark times. Thank you.
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What a delightful poem that made me smile. Thanks for posting it.
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It is a joy to read this poem at the end of the season.
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I love Laure-Anne’s poems.
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There is a lovely warmth on reading this poem Laure-Anne, thank you, I once had a bird-seeded rowan tree and I valued it highly too.
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Ah merde! It makes the world go round! Truly. Its high time it made poetry go round. With the agency of birds, and elemental things there is still hope. Today, I shall set my course by this poem, this poet, and sungold light. Au revoir!
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Yes, everything grows from merde.
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