In “Too Soon,” an older woman buys tomato plants at a discount store even though she wanted heirloom varieties like Cherokee Purple or Brandywine. The seedsman is twenty miles away, so she settles for hybrids, and the choice weighs on her. Hybrids produce plenty of sturdy fruit and please her family and friends, but she feels they lack something essential. The old varieties, she says, carry the taste of youth and feeling—young men’s eyes, weeping, laughter, a child’s anger, the confusion of a pulled braid. The hybrids cannot hold that kind of meaning. The poem ends on a quiet note of loss: an end to youth and the beginning of sameness, a safety that came too soon. The mood is wistful and rueful, full of longing for variety, memory, and intensity.
Too Soon — Summary
These are not the tomatoes she wanted, Heirlooms such as Cherokee Purple, or Even Brandywines. But the clerk only Sells what's brought in, finds labels, wands Each three-inch pot through as she would A bag of chips or box of three penny nails.
Really, the old woman muses, I should have Ended my day at the seedsman, but it's not Near here -- what, twenty miles? So I've Opted for the discount store again, to buy These things that hurt my soul: hybrids.
There's this about them, they do produce Heavy fruits that please her folks and friends Easily enough, and in larger numbers. But To her there's something in them lacking.
Old varieties taste of the eyes of young Men, of weeping, of laughter, of A child's anger at being teased, of The confusion of having one's braid pulled. On the hybrids she can't say as much. End to youth, beginning of sameness; a Safety that came to her too soon.