Editor’s note: As our political realities continue to shift in unexpected and unwanted ways, the writer has had several conversations with friends and family about where their thoughts are. A surprising number talked about stocking up on items, just in case. Those conversations led to this poem.

Shopping list for the end

To be used in case of nuclear accident, mutated influenza, retribution for tariffs, fake news, conspiracy theory militants, climate collapse, world war, civil war, food chain termination…..

I must remember to buy:

At least a dozen beeswax candles that burn clean and smell like honey. (fields of clover and wild grasses).

Six boxes of strike-anywhere matches to light the wicks.

An entire case of dark-roasted coffee… don’t forget to grind the beans coarsely for the press…an elixir of sobriety that will hold me to the earth when I feel myself floating away.

Ninety-six cans of beans. black beans preferably. practical beans. I will season with cumin, granulated garlic, flaked red pepper.

Fifty pounds of flour…organic is best.

Leavening agents…powder and soda…yeast (wild or packaged).

Three containers of cocoa powder, two four-ounce bottles of vanilla extract, one package of powdered eggs, walnut oil.

Chocolate cake as sacrament.

Cases of expensive red wine… French is best… with notes of earth and minerality…this will remind me of who and what I once loved.

Spices and accents to make the days pass well… to make the hours and minutes matter…anchovies, capers, kalamata olives, curry powder, cinnamon, more garlic.

Two dozen boxes of rusk-like crackers (the bread will mold and spoil).

Lastly buy seeds (of course)…at least forty-two packs of flower seeds.

I must remember to sow them freely,

broadcasting them everywhere as if I were a madwoman…arms akimbo, loose jointed…flowers of every shade and shape and size

Calendula blazing orange and yellow

Icelandic poppy delicate as tissue

Brick red nasturtium

False indigo blue as the skies

Mountain mint verdant and icy

Magenta hued liatris

Gully-loving loosestrife

Wild lily of the field that will turn itself inside-out in bloom, blazing red when we’re gone

Leigh Harder

East Middlebury