“It is so hard,” I bemoaned to you in tears.

“Follow me,” you gently whispered.
– I could hardly hear you through the noise in my head.
You took me into the garden.

We stood there
and listened to the sad song of a
mourning bird.

Suddenly, the sky lit up in an amber glow.
And then, just before nightfall,
You pointed to the shrub.

“Taste and see,” you invited me.

There it dangled from a prickly,
almost dried up cane,
red and ripe,
small yet filled with seeds,
a single raspberry.

I stretched out to it my tired hand, and
it willingly fell into my palm.

“It is so sweet,” I said as we both smiled.

(Prose and pictures, ©Heidi Viars – 2026)