Papa showed me the way to the wild blueberries. We hiked up the tall hill, and found those sapphire spheres hanging from delicate stems.
He told me stories of our Native American ancestors as he taught me how to pick the berries;
surely a lesson in gathering like this goes centuries beyond our two lives combined!
We took handfuls and filled our mouths with the sweetest blueberries I had ever tasted. Once we had our fill, we gazed out upon the horizon and admired the beauty of the ancient forest, then we returned down the dusty trail, climbed into the truck, and drove away.
From my forthcoming collection, "Michigan Childhood"