My summer was a raspberry patch,
Watered green by the cool, spring rains--
Leaves full bright by June.
And suddenly it was here--the first berry,
Plump and red, filled with sun.
I picked it and eagerly swallowed,
its sweetness bursting on my tongue.
That first day was freedom, followed by
sleeping on the trampoline in the cool evening breeze.
The summer days came rapidly, like four berries on a branch.
So full you hardly know they've fallen in your bowl until
the bare branch snaps back.
Time to go to the next.
Then one especially plump berry fell--
Rolled off the leaves, lost in the tall grass.
I mourned it, although I knew fifty more hung
ready to pick.
That day we missed, we know not what,
But wish we had it back, all the same.
The moon winked from the cool sky as I gathered berries at dusk.
I could hardly see the color of black-red from green.
I picked nonetheless.
I wanted all I could before the end of the season.
It was quiet and hushed when the last berry fell.
All the heat, water, cloud and sun--
in my bowl at the last harvest.
There were raspberries missed,
Shriveled and dry, their sweetness longed for
But only a hope remained
For another season.
--Sarah Droegemueller
If you ever feel like summer is going by too quickly, then you will relate to this poem. I thought of the connection as I picked, then dropped, a delicious looking raspberry. I thought, it's like a summer day that you really want to last, to enjoy to its fullest, and then it's gone.
