Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “The Chronic Illness Community Garden” by Danny McLaren.

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The Chronic Illness Community Garden

By Danny McLaren

we declare it a slow morning and arrive out of order, across the day. offering check-ins as greeting, enacting care as

hello. we take work in shifts as we shift, in and out of capacity. of pain, pressure, and fatigue. breath and

breathlessness. burst of energy, then rest.

seedlings go into the ground. slow, unwieldy, but they will take root in their own time and bear fruit in uneven bushels,

weigh down stems and trellises in familiar forms.

I drink water to stave off the oncoming migraine. you bundle mint for loved ones. our abundance, always something to

share with those who couldn’t make it today. yard work and care work are one in the same.

I leave early, or perhaps right on time, according to our collective timelessness. veggies and herbs will grow;

nourishment is on its way. like some kind of promised crip future.

mutual aid embodied in the first ripened tomatoes of the summer and fresh, ever-resilient mint that grows where it

shouldn’t. where we’ve desperately tried to curb it. but it doesn’t die, grows sideways up the wall instead. sticks out in

a way that is so familiar, we welcome it in.

we’ll make soup when the weather gets cold and the crops begin to die. I look forward to our collective hibernation and

our re-emergence in the spring, when our bodies allow it.

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Copyright © Danny McLaren

Previously published Syphon 8.0 (Cultivate Art Commons, 2024).

Danny McLaren (they/them) is a fat, neurodivergent, disabled, queer, trans, non-binary, and Jewish poet and writer living in Tkaronto, colonially known as Toronto, Canada. They write about living queerly, finding transness in childhood video games, making new rituals, and falling in love with their friends. Follow their work on instagram @dannymclrn.

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