Now that is summer with fresh apricots, peaches and strawberries this seemed like a topical poem to send you. This poem is from my newest book CROSSWINDS. It at the publishers now! Should be available for preorder by the end of July. Enjoy your summer and thank you for reading my poetry.
SWEETNESS
In the winter that is August
in San Francisco, I walk a quiet path,
surrounded by dripping trees,
lichen, fallen logs, soft soil.
I stop, my eye caught
by a touch of scarlet.
It is a perfect, crimson strawberry
resting on a mottled log
at the foot of a tall Monterey pine.
It is the best of what we select
at our Farmers’ Markets.
My fingers imagine the soft firmness.
My mouth knows it tastes
of summer.
The berry is a gift.
To whom?
A dying parent?
A lost love?
A passing away? A beginning?
Or a plea?
It is certainly a gift to me.
It is gone,
until I see a flash of red
amid the green.
It must have tumbled into the weeds.
I carefully resettle it on the log
to be taken up by the Gods.
Heather Saunders Estes 