Lily Tobias – Fennel

---

In her poem “Fennel”, Michigan poet Lily Tobias awakens our senses in the quiet hush of morning, and takes us to the temple. The muffled chanting, drunks embracing, smell of fennel on the fingers, the brisk cold of the snow, temple shadows, and a father standing still in the garden. Lily has given us so many sensory and imagery-laden treasures in “Fennel”, and those gifts are embedded deep with their sparse repetition in the latter half of the poem. “A year ago, I went to a meditation retreat in Ann Arbor to ‘make friends with my practice’. I’m not sure I accomplished that, but I did get this poem out of it,” Lily told The Dewdrop.

Fennel

Green was still in the garden
A shadow at 6:00 a.m.
I woke to chanting
I remember seeing two drunks hug, stumbling home in the snow
Our hands smelled from picking seeds
I prefer open heart hapjang
We arrived at the temple
I mistook shadow for substance
Concentration, the substance of the mind
Fennel seeds and small bugs
I looked at my hands, thought of my dad
My hands smelled of licorice in the morning
I prefer hands as open hearts
In the garden still green
My dad in a garden as still as a dream
At 6:00 a.m. I woke to chanting
There was snow
Concentration
We arrived at the temple thinking of snow
I remember hugging, two drunks
I prefer my heart open

---

Read On: Related Posts

• William Stafford’s Looking Across the River
• Gurdjieff and The Two Rivers
• Behind Me – dips Eternity – Emily Dickinson
• Pamela Wax – Capricorn Loses His Star
• Barry Casey – Wait Here