Poetry Friday: A Poem For Grace

A pile of Sungolds in my shirt

Happy Poetry Friday everyone! I hope that your weekend is beginning as sunshiney and full of promise as mine. We're packing the kids in the car tonight and hitting the road with a tent, a guitar, loads of good books, my paints and all the tomatoes we can manage to fit in. We're in the thick of it, tomato season that is, and what a beautiful season it has been this year.


I wrote about Sungold tomatoes this year, a variety that I really love, they're super sweet and a little bit tangy, very crisp skinned and just the most amazing orangey gold color. I wish I could send my dear sister-in-law a big box full of them. They were so fun to pick together last year at our CSA and it is such a really wonderful reminder to be gathering them here in my own yard and thinking of her. I hope that she gets to read this...I may have to send her a copy just to be sure.


Tomatoes for Grace

In December I ordered seeds for Sungolds
The only hybrid tomato I planned to plant.
All the rest were beefy, rippled heirlooms
Sungold, a golden marble of a cherry tomato
Was my one modern concession.
The seeds grew, in their little peat pockets
Drinking in the weak February sun,
There, on top of the sill-side radiator.
I bought another potted Sungold in May,
(When you think you can't have too many tomatoes)
There they were, so turgid and fuzz-leafed.
And so, I tucked it into bed, next to the one
I'd raised from seed and they grew up, twisting their
Arms together, embracing their round cages.
Now it is September and every day I walk
Out through the dewy grass and pick a handful
Of their shining school bus colored fruits.
They pop under my teeth just like they did in
Our toddler's hands when you visited last summer
I think of you, so far away across the ocean and
The way our laughter ran together down the rows
When we watched the baby totter after
A summer butterfly.

And this is last summer in the Sungold row, on the farm.

Such a beautiful plant.

And Grace herself. (often call her Penny here on the blog)

Well, I'm off to Michigan...I hope you all have a great week and that time somehow managed to hold still so I don't miss anything during my sojourn in the northland. Much poetic beauty can be found today at The Miss Rumphius Effect, the host blog for Poetry Friday. Drop on over, take a little browse through the offerings and maybe you'll be inspired to pen a few lines yourself.

Take care of yourselves, I'll see you all again soon!