Blueberry picking was no chore.
When I was too young to do many things
Well and fishing with my father's
Father, I discovered all kinds of stuff
I wasn't good at, like how to read
Ripples, or tackle slippery eels, or even how to clean
Spiny perches. 'Where are the hungry fish?'
Grandfather would spout at me, all the green pools
Were liars and cheats and patience,
Was another one of my shortcomings,
Not only this, my father hoped his trades
On me, but like a conflicted carpenter
I was in love with trees.
This all left me wondering just what
I might do, that is until I plumbed my first
Blueberry. In the hoary-head of blue things,
Stuff was easy, and ripe for the picking,
Bunching blue-baubles in baskets over-ripened
Of berries. On special mornings, due southwest
In lazy hills, round my home, — bells
Were breaking, in quiet sections of the Canton,
Massachusetts woods, and playing by them,
We rounded blue notes, some friends and I,
Plucked-out tunes to the breeze, on leafy-
Instruments, and pulled our weight, into moil-moisted
Bushels, (one batch of blue was more than a ton
Of any other fruit!)
Toiling, till the sky would peek
And spill its hue. Foragers were we, as teaming
Minnows round a polk-a-dot reef, feasting on some great
Blue-Fin’s roe, brave savages, painted in the glow of ember-
Light, of burnished yellows, and bushy-blanched browns
Drenched by dew and dappled in the stipple
Of sun-brushed fire, all the colours making patterns, even
Box Turtles knew. How merry it was we made our labors,
Why it was wicked! And muggy from the heat of cool
Indigo stars, we squenched our thirst, in glugs
Of kisses, each following the greatest by far,
And one soft day, we did notice the crown
Of a Princess, set on top of each full
Noble-blooded faery-pearl dropped
As if to commemorate all
The things that were worth
Knowing, stuff that was ripe,
Easy, and rapt
In blue.
