The White Pumpkin

The White Pumpkin

A farmer tends his field

Vines grow and wrap around each other

Giant white flowers bloom in the heat of summer

Butterflies and bees dance from flower to flower

Spreading the pollen from male to female

Inseminating to create the next generation

Weeks later the children arrive

They laugh and giggle as they run among the orange pumpkins

Each one takes their favorite home for carving or pie

One pumpkin is born small, oddly shaped with a white skin

It sits alone by the wooden fence as the rest are taken

The day before Halloween one child comes for a visit

Out of the dozens of pumpkins still waiting the child chose the small white one

His parents point out all the beauty around him

The child doesn’t change his mind or his heart

He spoke of the one he wanted

“This one is like me,” he said as he lifted it into his wheelchair

That was all that had to be said

The white pumpkin was loved by a little boy

A little boy who knew what it was like to be different

He knew what it was like to be loved

And now, so did that small, oddly shaped pumpkin with a white skin