Raspberry Picking—Tyler Rogness
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by Tyler Rogness
Things are busy these days.
Schedules, yes, but more—
inside is a garden I’d not
have recognized five years ago. But
perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised: How many days
make a stranger of the self?
I was picking raspberries when
wild, soft-purple cones erupted all
slantways within:
Motherwort—
mint, but a bitterness, too. I reached as taught
and wrapped a violent hand about—
and stopped. I didn’t know
that even this
can still the heart. Even this
has a place in the berry plot.
Things are busy these days—
months of tea spring at my feet,
a stalwart, lonely strawberry
makes a short and valiant show, and this:
a heart of purple bittersweet
sprung up within the raspberry.
Tyler Rogness is learning to sink into the small moments that fill a life. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Ekstasis Magazine, The Rabbit Room, Sehnsucht, the Clayjar Review, and the Amethyst Review among other publications. More of his explorations in faith, life, and language can be found at awakingdragons.com.
Love the repetition in the first and last stanzas ("Things are busy these days"). I appreciate, too, the pause at the end of the second stanza. I pause with you, as you consider what to uproot. I smile at each plant that is named: "motherwort," "mint," "months of tea," "stalwart, lonely strawberry." We need more gardening poems. Great work, Tyler.