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The time, the place; irrelevant to all that follows.

As this is an ode-less ode on an elegy on Passion and Tomatoes. An elegy with no couplets, elegiac or otherwise, save for two young bodies coupleting in hot passion during a hot August night under a hot silver full moon hung in a hot night sky.

Irrelevant because, in that august moment once upon a time, tomatoes were all that mattered.

August: the heat of the Summer. The Dog Days. Those blistering fleeting days before the long shadows of Fall and, eventually, the frigidness of Winter. 

The tomato plants: grown in a farmer’s fallow field that bordered the western stretch of yard of our modest bungalow. This same fallow field where, in early Spring, the same farmer spread nightsoil. 

And now tomato plants. As far as our eyes can see.

These tomato plants, sprung from human shit, are pregnant with brilliant-red fruit that hang on equally brilliant-green fuzzy vines. Vines on the ground, vines on the plant. Plants that have that “tomato plant” aroma that clings to our hands and arms and bare legs as we wander among the verdant fields in search of “just the ripest and bestest” ones. 

And earlier in that verdant field; her in her short shorts, her shoulder-length auburn hair in a tight ponytail, her thin cotton blouse caressing her breasts, the heat of the sun is on our backs. 

Shirtless, I carry a wicker cornucopia to hold our bounty. 

Watch her stoop down to a plant. Hold the basket to her as she plucks the fruit from the vine.

In the middle of the day, we eat these same just-picked tomatoes still warm from the summer sun. Sit nude at our small kitchen table as the afternoon sunlight pours in and illuminates the kitchen’s cheap off-white Linoleum floor. 

Sitting across the table from me, her tan lines glow on her warm bare skin.

The juice of a tomato runs down her chin which she casually dispenses with the back of her hand and then a smile.

A gold wedding ban shimmers on her ring finger. A recent addition.

And this is what awaits us, awaits the heat of us: young, tanned, hungry, horny. 

And tomato plants. As far as our eyes can see.

And that morning we make love on the living room floor, the glass sliding door well-open, a cool dewy breeze flooding in, washing over our nude bodies and I watch the sweat between her cleavage trickle down and drop a single drop onto my bare chest, her young body in a rhythmical motion (one that I match!) on top of my young body, her breathing hard, her eyes closed, a hint of a smile, not so much a smile of hilarity (although sex does have that aspect at times), but a smile more of concentration. 

That kind of smile. Of earnest determination. To reach a specific yet tenuous goal.

Then, her young body quivers and moves no longer and I remove my thumb and take my other hand from her hip, and the smell of something approaching pollen mixes with the dewy breeze and she lies down on me and we fall asleep, the weight of her sweaty body on mine.

And it’s good.

And now the late-afternoon burn and the red-hued sky, red from the smoke emanating from adjacent wheat fields alive with stubble fire that same farmer set. 

And our bungalow nestled in the midst of this infernal; a hint of humanity in the midst of bucolic.  

Garden of Eden? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Perhaps just a moment.

And tomato plants. As far as our eyes can see. 

And the world is young because we are young. And life awaits, is there for the taking. And we know this will be forever and never end. The hardness of youth. The incompetence of youth. The naivety of youth.

A trifecta that casts the illusion of being alive in the moment but not knowing it is a moment, one you’ll never get back to no matter how much you desire to. As if in a dream that you never want to awaken from. 

Now, barefoot and in a clinging white cotton sundress, she sweeps out the open sliding glass door and onto the back patio that overlooks the red and orange flames of burning fields canvassed with the filtered light from the setting sun.

And she hands me a gin and tonic then sits on my lap, wrapping her bare arm around my shoulders. 

Salad caprese okay? 

Contentment while the world burns. 

And tomato plants. As far as our eyes can see.