Holy Basil – a poem by Ahrend Torrey

Holy Basil
 
 
I notice the young holy basil, 
delicate,
 
with its two shiny leaves 
like tiny elephant ears.
 
I ask it, why we live—
then leave it for a day
and come back.
 
Then leave it for a day
and come back.
 
Without directly answering the question:
            
each day 
I watch it grow.

Ahrend Torrey is the author of Bird City, American Eye (Pinyon Publishing, 2022) and Small Blue Harbor (Poetry Box Select, 2019). His work has appeared in storySouth, The Greensboro Review, and The Perch (a journal of the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health, a program of the Yale School of Medicine), among others. He earned his MA/MFA in creative writing from Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and is a recipient of the Etruscan Prize awarded by Etruscan Press. He lives in Chicago with his husband Jonathan, their two rat terriers Dichter and Dova, and Purl their cat.