*a poem by Karina Borowicz, who is a Massachusetts born and bred poet with an MFA from the U of New Hampshire. Her first collection of poetry, The Bees Are Waiting, was published in 2013, and her second, Proof, was published in 2014. A link to Borowicz’s website is posted below this poem of summer ending, check it out. 🙂
The whiskey stink of rot has settled
in the garden, and a burst of fruit flies rises
when I touch the dying tomato plants.
Still, the claws of tiny yellow blossoms
flail in the air as I pull the vines up by the roots
and toss them in the compost.
It feels cruel. Something in me isn’t ready
to let go of summer so easily. To destroy
what I’ve carefully cultivated all these months.
Those pale flowers might still have time to fruit.
My great-grandmother sang with the girls of her village
as they pulled the flax. Songs so old
and so tied to the season that the very sound
seemed to turn the weather.