-This poem reflects on pears ripening indoors as early autumn cools the garden, where fruit gathered from the tree continues to gather sweetness in the last warmth of the window.
The pears were green when they came in,
still firm from shade beneath the tree,
we set them where the window held
the last warm hours of afternoon.
Each day their skins grow more like gold,
a freckled yellow, faintly bruised,
and through the room their sweetness moves,
too slight at first to name as scent.
Outside, the garden thins and cools,
the vines lie dark against the stakes,
while on the sill the pears receive
what summer leaves upon the glass.
By evening, one gives to the thumb,
its narrow stem bends toward the pane,
we lift it from the cooling sill;
two pears remain beside the glass.