My August garden is no place you want to be:

Abandoned for vacation, avoided on return,

Too muggy, the mosquitos, then ashamed,

Dreading what I’d find, ignored for weeks.

Too much heat, too little light, July-parched then

pelted by hot summer storms, left to rot.

Nothing’s right: weeds endure, flowers fade,

Shallow roots, mildewed leaves, no fruit.

The big rose off the porch is out of control,

protruding canes jabbing my neighbors,

One returned with clippers, snipped them right off,

Cleared the raspberries too, by accident,

They looked like weeds,

he shrugged, as I apologized

For putting him in that position.

That’s what I get for my neglect.

Yet nestled on the ground in yellowed leaves

One small red berry sits. It’s past time for berries here,

They’re done in May—but there it is, in August,

A perfect sample, mid chaos and decay,

Not because of but despite me.

Perhaps some small sweet thing can also grow

In the patch you’ve been avoiding, or ashamed of,

The weedy mess, bare dirt, of your life.