Posted in Uncategorized, tagged apple, autumn, hope, preservation on October 25, 2020| Leave a Comment »
To buy three boxes of apples
is to believe the world
will go on long enough
that we should preserve
the goodness of autumn.
Perhaps it is practical
to cook the fruit,
to store it in jars,
but I prefer to think of it
as hope filling the house
with its sweet red perfume,
hope filling the shelves
with the memory
of sunshine, of bloom.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged past meets the present, poem, poetry, preservation, strawberries, sweetness on July 14, 2018| Leave a Comment »
As I hull them
I think of the summer day
when Jen and I
rode our bikes
over Wisconsin hills
to the berry farm
and picked so many berries
we had to drive back later
with a car—
how hard it is
to be moderate
when met with abundance.
I froze the strawberries then
as I do now,
small red sweetnesses
for winter when
I will find it hard
to remember
just how generous
the sun.
Oh if that girl of twenty two
could see me now,
standing in the kitchen,
what would I tell her?
Nothing. Not a thing.
She has so much
to learn about trying
to save what she loves.
Better to just let her
see me as I am now—
red juice on my fingers,
red juice on my chin,
a pucker on my lips.