Raspberry Canes by Bruce Meyer

Summer is a time of guesswork.

The birds and rabbits

hunger for every mouthful they can swallow,

their animal ghosts arrive before dawn,

to eat their fill then vanish.

My mother would inspect her garden every morning,

taking inventory of what remained

before she had light to see by.

She would kneel beside a ravaged bough,

tell me how she had planned a pie,

snap the base of the last rhubarb shoots

and explain the purpose of a sugar bath

to quell the sour taste.

She’d say there is the faith in nature.

the chronicle of all things hoped for

and evidence of things not seen

explaining a garden is just a notebook

in which one writes the future.

If not enough remained for us,

she’d detail how to stretch things out,

how to make do with only leavings

not because they were spared by love

but because the world cannot take it all.

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Bruce Meyer is author of sixty-four books of poetry, short stories, flash fiction, and non-fiction. His most recent collection of poems is McLuhan's Canary (Guernica Editions). His poems have won numerous international awards. He lives in Barrie, Ontario.