-This poem reflects on picking the first ripe tomato of summer as a moment when patience, care, and sunlight become something tangible and nourishing.
Still warm from vine and afternoon,
it yields into the waiting hand,
red where the green once held its place,
full with sun and patient rain.
The stem comes loose with little sound,
a small release, a ripened yes,
and in its skin the garden keeps,
the long bright labor of the weeks.
No market gloss belongs to this,
just scent, and weight, and living color,
the tender proof that time and care,
can turn green wanting into gift.
To hold it is to hold the season,
not all of it, but something true,
the earth made round with heat and light,
and offered back through leaf and hand.