The tasters

Walking in the lots that edged the creek, My father pulled from a sweet-flag root the inner blade of one of the reeds that grew pointed and tall where we walked ``Eat it, taste it,'' as he crunched his own And we gingerly nibbled and chewed its strangeness A memory came of another walk in a garden after a shower where someone I loved gave me parsley to nibble wet with drops of rain I chewed on its greenness and tasted there the flavor of the ground it grew in Pungent, tangy fragrant with earth smells I had tasted and savored something more than gardens and swamps and people walking where parsley and sweet flag grew