Everybody knows the story about the poet--yes, of course, she has to be a poet---trying to climb the rockface, while beneath her is a hungry tiger and above her on the summit a hungry bear, let's say a black bear because I'm here in the Blue Ridge. No bear around here is hungry enough to eat anybody, much less a poet, but this is a story, and the teller gets to tell it the way she wants. She even gets to put a tiger in it, even though there are no longer any tigers on our mountain trails. No lions, either. Our poor poet can go neither up nor down, but as she stares straight ahead at the rock, the lichens, the little roots poking out trying to gain their own footing, she notices a patch of wild strawberries growing from a crevice. One particular strawberry calls to her, the most enticing, succulent strawberry she has ever beheld. She forgets the ravenous beasts above and below her and reaches for the strawberry, places it in her mouth, and tastes its sweetness all the way down to her quivering toes, doing their best to keep her balanced for just a while longer.
Strawberry by strawberry, we move through our days, and if we are poets who hang out in the kitchen a lot, as I do, we look forward to this time of year because of----yes, strawberries. This morning I have been preparing strawberries for freezing and jam-making, and I've placed several in my mouth to savor. Why should I resist? The lions, tigers, and bears never go away.
This strawberry I'm reaching for is all I've got. And right now it's enough.
