Visiting Vienna's Botanical GardenSummer's ripe on the last day of August

Last Day of August
I could not pass by the Botanical Garden
without stopping and take a walk in that glorious
late summer light


The heat's holding on with a vengeance,
almost a 100°F at 5PM on this last day of August -
and these were the red and yellow fruits of summer
I found as soon as I entered through the gate and
ventured up the path in the golden early evening glimmer

*

I had been hungry all the years;
My noon had come, to dine;
I, trembling, drew the table near,
And touched the curious wine.

’T was this on tables I had seen,
When turning, hungry, lone,
I looked in windows, for the wealth
I could not hope to own.

I did not know the ample bread,
’T was so unlike the crumb
The birds and I had often shared
In Nature’s dining-room.

The plenty hurt me, ’t was so new,—
Myself felt ill and odd,
As berry of a mountain bush
Transplanted to the road.

Nor was I hungry; so I found
That hunger was a way
Of persons outside windows,
The entering takes away.

Emily Dickinson

Photographed 31 August 2015
in the Botanical Garden of the University of Vienna
Joaquingasse entrance
3rd District
Images and own Text © by Merisi