I picked all of the grapes last week. The just-right combination of time and temperature and diligent watering or lack there-of had shaken-not-stirred the large deeply purple fruit into perfection. Their skins had begun to burst and their seeds softened just a bit. The fruit was outstanding.
The day I harvested the fair portion of a five-gallon bucket full was the day after we noticed that the wasps had noticed the concords as well. I had seen a few wasps crawling sneakily all over the leaves of the tallest sunflower. My deduction was that they were tracing, following the paths of the many kinds of bees that we have in our backyard. Tracking them. Hunting.
When I had diligently removed all the grapes any traces of the wasps and/ or bald-faced hornets, as some of them plainly were, disappeared as well. I didn’t get stung once, though they did begin to swarm all around my head in the end. I did get some time alone with the itchweed again, but that’s another ongoing saga. I thought about seasons and change while I picked and I thought about the last return trip I was about to take with Juliet to college for her senior year.
Time goes by faster and faster and faster. I’ve tried taking time to sit with my cat or our other cat or the dog and revel in the peace that petting them brings me.
Just to take the moment and be happy that I’m happy, but I’m usually interrupted. It’s okay, we are all busy, and life doesn’t ever stand still, cause, well, when it finally does, it’s death, and that’s a whole other saga… I’ve been working on this poem. It may or may not be finished, but the idea is fully fleshed out. One of the reasons I chose Minnesota for my home was that I like change and starting with the weather and finishing with the weather, our state sure is constant in one thing. We aren’t afraid of change. And… we are all fishing for something. All. The. Time.
Changes The woods are noisy small mammals hustle birds drum and drill and call fruit falls.
You can almost hear the colors change.
Three otters snort and blow as our canoe approaches.
The smallest climbs up on top of the largest’s shoulders.
They don’t bark, but disappear.
Sinking from the neck up and kicking and diving down between the cabbage.
You cast your line I cast mine.
We search for nothing more than as much summer as we can catch.
I think we’re using the wrong bait.
©Timothy James Stouffer #elystreetpoet 09042026 All Rights Reserved
