THE FORCE OF NO BEANS

The monkeys come for a preliminary survey of my early spring garden this morning and look around in disbelief, their heads soon hanging in disappointment, their clipboards unmarked. They nibble at weeds; I laugh at their inconsequence!

Why do I scoff at the monkeys, why do I mock them, yet pay them no heed, other than a few token rocks? I pay them no heed in the depths of my soul - where it counts - because I have no tomatoes! I mock the unscrupled simians because the force of no beans is with me! The existential forlornness they find in my garden is my nourishment! They are jewel thieves at my rhinestone convention!

I note that they have brought their infants and children to the big disappointment as well, which is good. It is a source of deep joy to me that the genetically unscrupulous offspring are learning of this abject pointlessness at an early age. It does me profound good to observe their infant despair, it compensates in part for all those absconded onions, it offsets the long-term tomato anguish, eases the chronic pain of protracted bean loss, erases the grisly pictures of purloined pumpkins and cadged cucumbers...

Yes: bring the young ones here, I say! Show them all there is! For all there is is ginger root! Lettuce! Arugala! Red radishes! Mizuna! Rosemary! Stuff they hate! Thyme! Two kinds! St. John’s wort! Peppermint! All monkey yucks! Lemon balm! Oregano, Spinach and Verbena! Nyah-hah-hah! It is good to subject the new marauders to ongoing human mockery!

Yes, my garden is purged of all that monkeys love! Of course the beasts themselves taught me these things over the years, and for all their ruthless and painstaking instruction I scoff in gratitude.