The radish is the noisy’st root,
Its vocal tack beyond dispute,
effusive in expounding truth,
so talkative, this verbal fruit.

For ages prior and aeons hence,
have poets, lost in reverence,
e’er had their thoughts disturbed
In comp’ny of this verbal herb

As, spicy, doth it bide its time
concocting tales in verse and rhyme,
and platitudes, as is its bent,
propounding truth, without relent.

With secrets it should ne’er be trustered,
this indiscrete and loose-lipped mustard,
lest ev’ry private thought and plan,
reverb’rate loud from your garden.

The carrot dreams in quietude,
The yam’s indifference seems rude.
The leek a mute, and soon you’ll learn,
The ‘tato downright taciturn.

Confronted, then, by vegetable basket
Minds inquis’tive may well ask it,
“Does none among ye speak the truth?”
   …And waiting, then, may shortly hear,
   in voice unquiet to the ear,
   and which, proclaiming from the farms,
   not reticent to tout its charms,
   with ardor and uncommon verve,
   the root that grates upon the nerves,
   the forthright and abrasive bulb
   whose unasked counsel to the world,
   gives voice to every passing thought
   in rhetoric which ceases not,
now, in reply, proclaims: “I doth”.

For radish sharp, it stands alone,
unmoderated in its tone,
declaiming, ‘neath it’s gentle leaves,
all that it knows, or else believes,

As in ev’ry dewy dawn,
this brassicate does ramble on,
with lyric odes from ‘neath it’s leaves,
and dogg’rel through the dimming eves.

But! Knowing this gregarity,
one, questioning for clarity,
may wonder if, somehow, one can
know radish-writ from words of man?

For as the reader so inclined
may ask the question in thy mind:
From whence’d THIS poem germinate?
From mind of man? Or salad plate?

But on that source this verse is mute,
betraying not if man or root
was moved to pen this lightely air.
Ask in your garden. Perhaps the answer’s there.