Blackberry Picking: A Poem For My Daughters
Sometimes I think
that the secret is to look for berries as if you were a small animal.
(Wait: you are small animals.)
To search for fruit the way the plant wants you to see it.
The plant actually wants you, small ones, to find the berries.
So, step on the thick thorny vines that get in your way—
blackberry vines can take that, trust me,
so wear good shoes—
and then lift the vines up.
Maybe use the leaves themselves, as gloves, then lift,
and then the clusters of berries will appear.
But you’re not done yet: are the berries ready?
If they’re dark purple, that’s one clue.
Are they a little bit soft? Do they give, just a little, to the touch?
Then they’re ready.
I like to use my thumb and first two fingers to gather albuterol online together,
nearly a kiss, closing on the end,
And then pulling gently.
I think about the way the plant wants to be harvested:
a small animal mouth, a soft tug.
And of course I worry about all those thorns.
But I want you to have as many thorns as you need.
I want you to protect what you know to be tender.
I want you to grow thickly stubborn as vines,
the ones strong enough to protect and nourish and shelter,
who fight for all the sunlight they can find.
I want you to know the ecstasy of the harvest, the harvester and harvested.
I want you to know about the scratches and the stings
and always, always, always, the going back for more.
I love this! Is it a take on Seamus Heaney’s “Blackberry Picking?” In my mind I can hear all the little birds rustling deep inside the throny bushes trying to find the perfect berries.
Thanks, Amy! It’s a tribute to Robert Hass’s poem, “Meditation at Lagunitas.”
“Such tenderness, those afternoons and evenings,
saying blackberry, blackberry, blackberry.”
And of course I worry about all those thorns.
But I want you to have as many thorns as you need.
I like this a lot.
Thanks very much, Jon! (Are you a parent or a teacher as well? These are such parenting-teaching lines.)
I remember when my daughter got into a stinging nettle patch when she was six while we were morel picking. It is a vivid prickly memory for her 20 years later. Knowledge without the thorns seems incomplete, don’t you think? Isn’t that the point you were making?
Ouch, stinging nettles!!! Poor thing. And yes, absolutely. I don’t want them to get hurt, and yet I know hurt can be one of the surest ways that we learn.