-This poem reflects on strawberries as one of summer’s first intimate gifts, small and vivid signs that the season has begun to ripen into sweetness.
In the low green hush beneath the leaves,
the berries gather their small fire,
red in the shade, and sweet with sun,
close to the hand that comes to find them.
They do not call attention loud,
but wait in quiet under bloom,
their brightness hidden near the earth,
where morning stillness keeps its cool.
To lift them from the slender stems,
is to feel the season turn,
from light alone to something held,
a ripening made flesh and color.
So much of summer starts like this,
not grand, but near, and softly given,
a little sweetness in the palm,
the field made intimate with fruit.