Yesterday I weeded the strawberry bed,   

And tugged a thousand dog violets from the ground;

Their lilac flowers played the rain and

Now the swollen seeds

Blow from sprinkler heads.

 

My  fingers pince the brown thin leaves from strawberry base,

Grip the soil in earthy solitude,

And turn the leaf to find:

 

No harvestmen scuttling ‘fraid from base to base,

No small pearly slug clung to underleaf,

No hairbrush caterpillar nor ladybird,

Not even blackened beetle or repulsive cuckoospit.

 

Two Speckled Woods flutter by but no Red Admiral weighs the anchor

Nor Large White sail, nor Painted Lady upon the deck of

Tempestuous seas that plumb to earth.

 

Gone are the armies of voracious orange slugs with panting pneumostomes

Upon their mantles,

 And little is the fruit that other years have become a joy

And then a bore,

The season’s gem

And then the “not again!”

 

And lately where the spinach should stand

Forget-Me-Knots have bloomed  -

Intent on reminiscence:  sky blue, summer blue.