A poem by a tomato caretaker.
After twenty some years of being an environmentalist poet, storyteller, playwriter and guest lecturer here in Plattsburgh, NY, I realized I didn’t have a personal relationship with nature myself. Just then, in 2009, Ian Ater started Fledgling Crow Farm in Keeseville, NY. I became the caretaker of the tomatoes.
From 2012 to 2022, I was the pruner and clipper for 2000 plants in four greenhouses. Fledgling Crow ended in 2022. Then in 2023, I began working for Mike and Marissa at North Point Community Farm here in Plattsburgh. I now help grow 3000 outdoor, and 300 greenhouse tomatoes. For many of those years, I also helped grow 200 tomato plants with Kim Leclaire at her Quarry Garden in Chazy.
My son, Bevan Cochran and his wife Laura opened the Twisted Carrot restaurant here in Plattsburgh. On the wall in the restaurant is a photo of my hands, after 6 hours of pruning 2000 plants, holding a tomato.
I’ve read this poem many times to farmers at readings, gatherings, music events etc.
Tomato Farmer
Tomato in my left hand
Clippers in my right hand
Jeff is going to take its life
Cut the tomato off its plant
Jeff is going to kill it
Take its tomato life
And put it in a plastic box
Put it in a metal truck
Truck it to the market
Where someone’s hand will
Reach into the plastic box
Pick the tomato
Take its life
Into their own life
Put it in their car
Carry it into their home
Cut it up
Put it in their mouth
And the body of the tomato
Will become their body
A tomato in my left hand
Clippers in my right hand
Held to the stem
I remembered watching my son
Be born from my wife
I watched my son
Be cut from his mother
Emerging from her body
Into his own body
Born out of the love between his mother and father
To stand in the love between the earth and the sky
And there I was
Tomato in my left hand clippers in my right hand
I clipped the stem
And the tomato fell into my hand
I thanked the mother plant and looking at her
Stalk-branching-leaves-holding-onto-sunrays
Tomato plant leaves holding onto sun rays
That branch trunk down and root a hold
Onto the earth the whole sphere of earth.
Just then with my mind and my eyes
My whole body next to her whole body
The tomato in my hand
Became the whole earth
The whole earth gave birth to this tomato
This plant is the planet this planet is the plant
Flying around the sun winter-spring-summer-fall
The whole earth made the power to grow come be a tomato
to fall into my hand
The earth traveling around the sun
Being the tomato seed sprout roots-stalk-leaves-blossomed-fruit
Winter-spring-summer-fall
Love – Rising in love – living in love – falling in love – love
The life of this tomato is the life of the earth
The body of this tomato is the body of the earth
And this isn’t the fanciful imagination of a poet
Who’d been under the sun
inside a plastic greenhouse
At 90-plus degrees for six hours
This is the way love becomes true life
This is the way the earth gives birth to a tomato
This tomato in my hand
Yes, it is one dollar
In the city
In the culture of money
I have a dollar in my hand
7 and one half minutes of my working life
One quarter gallon of gasoline
Three quarters of a beer
One 10 thousandth of a tractor
Yes, a tomato is equal to one dollar
And yes it is true the whole earth
Traveled all the way around the sun
Just to put it in my hand
The moon pulled on the waters of the earth
Just to put it in my hand
The stars shined on the planet
Just to put it in my hand
Our galaxy moved a bit more
Around the center of universe
To put a tomato in my hand
Truly and for real in the tomato way
The tomato is the earth
And me Jeffery Carl Cochran
One man amidst 8 billion people
Standing on our planet
my body here
Got to take into my hand the world
The tomato alive world
And carry it to a person I don’t even know
Hand it to them and into them
It will become them
Tomato in my hand
In my hand is the world
That will become a person
And even if that person has never observed
And was never told that the tomato
Is the earth is their body
Will be their actions will be their thoughts
Even if they look at a tomato
And see only its imperfections
Or think of it only as money
Or see it only as a taste for the mouth
Or The ingredient of a recipe
Or a vehicle for vitamins
Or a way to please their lover
Even if they don’t know
It takes the entire cosmos
To grow a tomato
Even if they don’t know
As I didn’t know
The tomatoes know
The tomato knows
The plant knows
The planet knows
And grows and grows and grows and grows
Tomatoes
