They perform this act of sharing
every summer—people bringing
bags and baskets of tomatoes,

sending them around the sanctuary
in bowls with tongs, encouraging
this one to offer the vessel of fruit

to the next one. And I hold the little
round red bit of goodness in my palm
until after Rev. Lucy’s blessing,

when we all pop them into our mouths,
a gift of bursting seasonal joy.
On the way out we are encouraged

to take home some tomatoes,
offerings from other folks’ gardens
to join some of mine that I will

cut and place in a bowl with chunks
of watermelon and the first cucumber
of my crop, along with lacy shards

of green onion, to be topped with
crumbled feta for tonight’s dinner.
Heaven beams up at me, bright red

as I linger over the bowl, big spoon
in hand, encouraging the gifts from
the soil to mingle, leaning in for

a grateful sniff before adding mint
plucked from my yard’s generous
stems, then, bringing fingers to face,

inhaling the scent of forever.

•••

With thanks to the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento
(UUSS) for its generous tomato communion (and Rev. Lucy Bunch’s
delightful homily on celery, of all the humble vegetables).