An unusually cool May has given us a longer spring than usual
here in the northeast tip of Kansas.
It wasn’t until the last week of the month 
that we got the rains that usually transition from April into summer.

And then the storms came:
over six inches in seven days,
washing away even more of the topsoil in the paddock,
exposing maple roots and leaving long, jagged, chutes
that tailed across the hard-hoofed trampling of the horses
held in through winter’s long dormancy,
keeping the tiny pastures protected
by sending fragile dirt down toward the ditch from the horse pen
to keep grass in the other lots ready for spring’s renewing green.

But the strawberries came on heavy and thick,
four times the yield from last year,
though a bit tart from the cool temps—
but I reckon that’s why God gave us sugar.

With two quarts fresh in the fridge
And a dozen pints of jam on the shelf
And more berries flush on the vines,
I invited the neighbors across the creek
To come over and pick.

Just before dusk,
Matt and his nephew showed up,
parked the truck in the shadows below
the massive cottonwood by the round pen.

I went out to help for a bit,
Matt picking with strong hands and thick fingers,
his plastic ice cream bucket already nearly half-full.

Beckett said, “I’ve been eating four for each one I put in my bucket,”
and I remembered a similar ratio from when I was seven
in the garden set just east of our old house in Todd County, Kentucky,
my young back aching and Mom’s bucket full long before mine 
and not a hint of red on her lips.
The quickly aching back is something that hasn’t changed 
in over sixty years.

I stand and stretch and talk to Matt 
about the particular color of ripe berries, 
his baby daughter, and training horses.

In a few minutes, I offer a handful of dark red berries to Beckett,
“Is it okay if I put these in your bucket?”
He grins and nods and I drop them in.
His body seems frail and thin
Next to two grown men but like his women kin, 
he’s tougher than he looks.
Matt looks exactly like the kind of man who cuts wood
And breaks horses—tough and weathered like hedge wood.

We finish picking, Matt’s bucket mounded up over the top
and Beckett’s almost full.
We stand beneath the birches for a while, talking,
and I show Beckett a piece of paper-thin bark.
He takes it, rubs it between a thumb and finger.

We linger a little longer,
sharing the wonders of the world
in the closing gray of thickening clouds,
rubbing red-stained fingers across our jeans,
grateful for this season and the sharing,
and the tart sweetness 
that fringes much of what we cherish in this world.


H. Arnett
6/5/2025