Ripening

 

You almost missed it — a wild

blueberry

in mid-September

 

somehow overlooked by bears

and berry pails

and not yet touched

by frost —

 

and you stopped 

to hear it

humming alone in its night sky skin 

those wordless tunes

of ripening

 

which the heart of you knows

as the sweet weight

of longing

for what bends 

every stem

with an ending’s 

beginning

 

like a late berry unfolding 

as if it knows 

no season.