Summer Solstice Poem

I wrote this poem a year ago, and I remembered it today while I picked strawberries at the farm down the street. Today is warm, dry, and sunny — quite the opposite of the damp berry-picking day I wrote about last summer. I don't have a picture of the strawberry patch, so I'm including one of my backyard roses.

Wish You Were Here

in the strawberry patch
under the mountain
on a dewy morning
getting in the last quart
of berries before the rain
just me and the slugs
looking for sweetness

in the downtown millpond
among the cattails
gliding a kayak
past red-winged blackbirds
snapping turtles lurking
somewhere below

in the front yard
near the silver maple
on a wide-open night
asking all the unanswered
questions of the stars
as the moon dips its ladle
into the last house