-This poem reflects on tomato vines in midsummer as they climb, thicken, and begin the slow visible work of turning growth into ripening fruit.
They lean into the stakes with weight,
their stems grown thick in sun and rain,
broad leaves casting layered shade,
over the dark and fragrant earth.
Yellow flowers gave way to green,
small fruit now gathers under hand,
not ripe yet, but full of shape,
and warm with all the work of July.
The garden smells of leaf and dust,
of living stem and loosened soil,
and every vine, and twist of twine,
shows how abundance learns to climb.
So much of summer ripens slow,
by reach, and hold, and patient light,
until the hanging green begins,
to dream itself toward red.