Jars on the Counter

They held, bless them,
through the full boil—
rattling like gossip in the canner,
steam curling up the windows,
everything hot and loud and promising.

Then out they came—
lined up like promises on the kitchen counter,
still beaded with effort,
still humming from the inside.

And wouldn’t you know it—
that’s when they went.
One with a sharp crack,
one with a sound like a door closing too quick in the summer air,
one with no sound at all,
just a slow leak of peaches into the towel drawer.

It wasn’t the heat that did them in.
It was the shift—
from too hot to not,
from watched to assumed.

You have to mind jars like you mind people.
Don’t set them down to hard.
Don’t walk off like they’ll manage fine.
They need time to settle,
a soft place to land,
a kind word if you’ve got it.

That’s how it goes—
they break,
not in the chaos,
but in the calm that follows it.

Like most of us do.