Strawberries

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A perfect strawberry, Farmer Robert says,
is red all over.
No green,
no white anywhere,
not even on the point.
It is a full,
bright
RED.
Shape and size do not matter.

The perfect strawberry
is picked,
fully ripe,
from its parent plant.
To find it
you must crawl through the dirt on your knees
seeking for bright red fruit
in nests of green leaves.

Some strawberries are tricky
tantalizing you with a bright shiny top
but when you turn them over
you find blotchy orange underneath,
or white or even a green hard place
at the tip of the fruit.
On these you must pass.
They will come into their own in time.

I would hold communion
out here in the strawberry patch.
All of us kneeling in the warm soil,
bright sun overhead.

Gently placing a strawberry
in each pair of cupped hands,
I would say,
“The Body of God.
The Body of God.
The Body of God.”
And we would all take, and eat.

 

Beloveds:  By popular demand, this poem comes out every spring,  with the strawberries.  In my garden they are just now perfectly ripe.  May you too taste the Body of God in the fruit of your choice, and may the juice run down your chin.

Young Summer

Spirit of Life, Mystery beyond Mystery:

The wheel of the year has turned again
and now we welcome young Summer.

Change is all around us and within us.
Friends and loved ones are on the move:
some are arriving, some are leaving;
some are ill, others recovering;
some are altogether gone.

When change becomes wearying,
when we feel we can’t keep up,
may we rest in the beauty of the world.

May we love the long blue days
and the warm rainy days.

May we love the red cardinal
and the green ferns,
the fragrance of roses
and the taste of fresh strawberries,
the face of the person to our right
and the face of the person to our left.

May we love them all the more knowing
we and they are all ephemeral parts
of one great living breathing changing whole.

May we rest in that whole,
knowing how greatly we are loved.

Blessed be.