Silphium

There’s no mistaking the aroma of mint.
And when the Thai basil sprouts beside
the Italian basil, they’ll often cross-pollinate
so that a batch of one becomes the other.
I still have seeds from a generation of plants
that I bought at the farmers’ market in Maine
maybe ten or twenty years ago. What is time
that it can group in chunks so large that whole
children can be born and raised inside of it?
It was summer, I’m certain, and I was with Pat,
with whom I’d consumed a lot of wine during
grad school, and we were in Portland, our kids
at her house with her husband, a scientist
who wasted hours divining the stains on the Holy
Shroud of Turin via the Internet and a chat
group. Or maybe he spent the hours, his eyes
bleary, his speech slowed by lack of plosives
and articulations, as he tried to explain to us
meaning after rising from his basement den
where dark secrets germinated in the warmth.
Ages ago, over chunks of time larger than all
of us combined, there was in antiquity an herb
called silphium used for seasoning and perfume,
both aphrodisiac and contraceptive, as though
the universe couldn’t decide, or has a wry sense
of humor. It tasted somewhere near fennel and wild
carrot, a savory that’s hard to describe. Explain
thyme. Tell me salt. When we say peppery, we
mean only one thing. Or maybe many things.
Pat cooked exuberant, extravagant meals
that we consumed in succulent communion.
And that plant is lost to the ages. It doesn’t grow
in captivity or at will. There are no seeds.
My children are gone, grown, reproducing
in Illinois, Connecticut, Washington, all far
away, and Pat’s daughter is tending herbs
in a hut with a hand-built hydration system,
somewhere in the scrubby hills of California.