A SEED PLANTING PRAYER TO SAINT ISIDORE

St. Isidore, St. Isidore,
To you we rogate, to you we implore:
Please let it (or not) shine or pour,
Bring on the bee, hold off the hoar;

Coax the oat, swell the meat
Of grape and nut;
encourage the wheat
To ripen fat in August heat
Then lay down, brown, for us to beat.

And bag in burlap with quadruple X’s
Haul to the mill with stone-ground reflexes,
Enliven the staff of both the sexes
By stuffing them full of B complexes;

Sweeten the soil’s sour grievance.
Correct the mustard’s feckles malfeasance,
Raise up the corn in rows of allegiance,
Bow down the cherry in fruitful obesiance;

O Guardian of squash and tendrilled pea,
Hoeing away at sanctity,
All ills of bud and vine and lea,
But mostly our garden, remedy.