(for Autumn Thompson and Brett Jeffries
on their wedding day)

Now the California heat, warming
everything, growing every thing,
if we add enough water,

vegetables leaping in gardens
like hurdlers, up and over,
sustenance for weeks,

the zucchini on stealth runs
making a break for it, somehow
ending up on neighbors’ porches.

If we are fortunate—and we are—
the bounty of summer is a form
of love made visible,

the earth giving what it always
does, even when rudely assaulted,
even in times of such hardship

in the greater world, so much of it
human-inflicted, unnecessary.
Yet, look: Love thrives as

a couple pledges their forevers
by a mountain lake shimmering
with June’s brightest sapphires.

And miles away in the Sacramento
Valley, hose in hand, watering all
manner of show-offy flora

that feeds bees and butterflies—
which in turn give back to us—
we salute what grows, what thrives.

We study the still-green tomatoes
on the long-armed vines, check
the cucumbers, eye the peppers,

eager, when it’s time, to share them
with someone, anyone, everyone.
Love made edible.

The offering, we know, will
bounce back tenfold, filling us,
warming us, cooling us,

like the Delta breeze
tickling the tiny hairs
on our sun-browned arms.