Late Figs

Will the figs ever turn?

The tomatoes, a huge crop not slowed by rot or beetles,

Are gone. Sauce in the freezer and salsa in jars.

The peppers are expanding their palette,

Greens into yellows, reds into purples.

Basil is pesto, rosemary is drying and

Cardinals are noshing the sunflowers.

But will the figs turn?

They were late arriving from their winter’s sleep but

Now they’re here in numbers-small, green and hard

Needing another month of summer

That none of us get.

Even the plants in the bottom near the stream,

Whose thick resinous buds will get us through the winter

Are ready to dry and cure.

But somehow I failed the figs.

Twenty more warm nights where the stars swim in the humidity would do.

Maybe fourteen.

But not to be.

The stars are crisp in the fall evenings and the figs,

Born but not bred, will be left to freeze,

Blackening on the naked branches.

A reminder that resurrection needs luck-

As much as faith.

 

© – TDR 2019