CHERRY TOMATOES


By Anne Higgins

Suddenly it is August again, so hot,

breathless heat.

I sit on the ground

in the garden of Carmel,

picking ripe cherry tomatoes

and eating them.

They are so ripe that the skin is split,

so warm and sweet

from the attentions of the sun,

the juice bursts in my mouth,

an ecstatic taste,

and I feel that I am in the mouth of summer,

sloshing in the saliva of August.

Hummingbirds halo me there,

in the great green silence,

and my own bursting heart

splits me with life.



Who could say anything to surpass Anne Higgins’ luscious poem? Read it again. Carry it around with you. Experience the split skin, the ecstatic taste-- warm and sweet. Are you sitting on the ground and letting the juice burst in your mouth? After all, it is August; (we’re not yet in one of those formidable months spelled with an“r” ). Have you noticed a hummingbird or two as well in the great green silence? And is your own heart bursting? Cherry tomatoes can do that for one.