Broadleaf

by Jessica Whipple

“We exist — everything exists — in degrees.”

When I wrote this poem in 2021, my family had recently moved from Western PA to Eastern PA. It was the beginning of the Pandemic, we knew very few people, and we spent a lot of time exploring. And that meant seeing, on our jaunts, a mysterious plant covering many acres of Amish farmland in Lancaster County. After some asking-around I discovered it was Broadleaf tobacco.

Although my Christian faith tradition is different than that of the Anabaptist Amish community, I have a lot of respect for their pious, intentional living and striving for what is Good and True (capital G and T). But I have mixed feelings about tobacco farming. Is it grown for pesticides? Is it grown for cigarettes? Is one of these things okay, but not the other? Or neither? I have not sorted out the can of worms this topic has opened for me. Reading this you may feel unsatisfied with that answer, but to me, I remind myself this kind of equivocation, as a personal practice, is healthy.

I’ve written about having OCD. My brain, in its zeal for wanting clarity and certainty, also wants things to be absolute. But few things are clearly good/bad, harmful/helpful, or any other set of opposing extremes. We exist—everything exists—in degrees. This poem is an exercise in reminding myself of that, embracing the tension it creates, and if necessary, answering a question with “I don’t know.”

Broadleaf

My daughter calls it
"batacco." Funny, but just
because she’s little.

It serrates the sky
broad leaves claw the horizon
greedy for good things

given freely by
worked earth, as a livelihood
for honest people.

Come fall the barn swells
sides splayed like fraying broom heads
as wrinkled leaves dry.

How much, I wonder,
of growing is killing? How
much of life is death?

Note: “Broadleaf” originally appeared in ONE ART: a journal of poetry in 2021. Below are notes by ONE ART’s Editor-in-Chief, Mark Danowsky, on the poem:

“Part of the reason I picked ‘Broadleaf’ for publication in ONE ART is because the poem resonated on a personal level. It reminded me of my own experience living in what I liked to call ‘Wyeth Country’—Lancaster County, PA. Living in a small town, I’d pass fields of tobacco on the 15-minute drive to the closest laundromat. The poem evokes the feeling of this place in the way Richard Hugo talks about towns in his famous text, The Triggering Town.

The humor of the poem is a strong selling point for me as a reader. It’s difficult to walk the fine line of humor in poetry much like it’s challenging to walk the fine line of sentimentality. Broadleaf is truly an expertly crafted poem. Strong lines and surprising twists line to line: ‘broad leaves claw the horizon / greedy for good things.’

The ending wraps up the poem just right; not neatly with a bow, but in a manner that provides a thoughtful takeaway for the reader to reflect upon. I love when poems take a step back and open this way, with a wide-angle lens, putting our small lives in perspective.”

Jessica Whipple is a poet and author of two children's picture books: Enough Is... (2023, Tilbury House illus. by Nicole Wong) and I Think I Think a Lot (2023, Free Spirit Publishing illus. by Josée Bisaillon). Her work for adults has appeared in Philadelphia Stories, ONE ART, McSweeney's, and Gastronomica: The Journal of Food Studies (forthcoming). "Broken Strings," appearing in Door Is a Jar, received a Best of the Net and a Pushcart nomination. Read more at AuthorJessicaWhipple.com and consider following her on social media: @JessicaWhippl17.

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