Wait until the necessary and everlasting overpowers you, until day and night avail themselves of your lips.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Essays and Lectures”
I believe in ripeness, the wisdom
of waiting. Here on my counter,
the melon sweetens and softens.
The peppers slowly turn from green
to red. The tomatoes become less
like stones and more like kisses.
Terrible to taste an early grape,
the way its sharp juice rucks
the soft lips. Terrible to eat
the berry before it’s earned
its blush. And still, the misery
of waiting—how eagerness
rises up in us, a surge of please,
a tide of want, a rush of now.
Yes, to the wait, the awful wait,
how this trial of patience
brings us closer to ourselves,
how it makes the future inevitable
ever that much sweeter.