Crazy Stable

After admiring it for years at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, I have a beautyberry in my own garden.





The berries look like smooth, symmetrical versions of grape-flavored Nerds candies, almost artificial.

Nearby, caryopteris 'Black Knight' is doing its best work in years. The bees don't just visit, they nuzzle it obscenely for long drunken intervals.

Edibles are carrying out the theme (never consciously planned--that would imply I had actually devoted some thought and care to the garden this year, as opposed to hasty and occasional life support). Here is a mysterious dark purple-black pepper borne in clusters on top of the plant; I stole one of these last year and saved the seeds, but I'm darned if I remember the scene of the crime.
Even the rosemary is blooming--no biggie to people with California-like climates, but rather thrilling in Brooklyn.

September Tomato

If I’d been a good gardener,
Avid, vigorous—
I would have planted them in June
And by now my harvest would hang heavy
In the autumn sun.

But no, I left them languishing,
Watered by storms and chance.
Exploratory rootlets, tasting earth, kept them alive,
Shamed me with their implacable reach
Through the bottom of the pots.

Well, look at you, green globes,
Swelling just in time for chilly nights
As if you had all the summer in the world.
We can’t go back; with luck, perhaps a few
Will make their way to gorgeous red by frost.