Time to gather cherry tomatoes, bring them inside to ripen,
yank up their vines. Tend to the end of ripening.
We planted in May, before the hottest summer in 120,000 years.
By July we were deep in caprese, a grand ripening.
So many 90+ degree days–we sure were thankful for the lake.
To keep from rotting: sauté (no way to suspend the ripening).
It’s fall by the calendar, the days shortening, the nights
lengthening. But the sun? Unrelentingly ripening.
As the world sweltered through its hottest August on record,
we gathered zucchini after zucchini, a weirdly blessed ripening.
So, Martha, what will you to tell your grandchildren
when they ask what you did to help? I tended to the ripening.
On my phone, a Severe Weather Alert: Freeze Watch. Frost formation
could kill crops. A welcome end, this year, to the endless ripening.
Martha Silano has authored seven poetry collections. Her newest is This One We Call Ours (Lynx House Press 2024). Acre Books will release Terminal Surreal in September 2025. Martha’s poems have appeared in Poetry, Paris Review, The Missouri Review, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Her website is available at marthasilano.net.