Blackberries

 I grew up on acres of wild timber.  A creek ran through it, and in the summer my brother and I would dam the stream to make a pool for swimming.  In the winter, we laced our snow boots and skated down it.  Not far from the creek, just up a hill, was a patch of blackberries.   No plant has a better defense than the wild blackberry.*  You may breach its thorny briars, but never without inflecting raw wounds upon the flesh. Still, it's true what they say; pain makes victory all the sweeter.   

This is my father-in-law's hunting stand.  A stone's throw away is a thick bramble of blackberries.  Last week, roaming the woods with Papa, my children and nephews picked the ripe fruit.  As we worked, I remembered a poem by Mary Oliver.  That moment in the woods I could not recall her exact words, but there is a reliability in Oliver's work.  I knew with certainty how it would read.  There on the page would be my morning described with tender perfection as an act of piety. 

 

August

by Mary Oliver

When the blackberries hang 

swollen in the woods, in the brambles 

nobody owns, I spend

all day among the high 

branches, reaching 

my ripped arms, 

thinking

of nothing, cramming 

the black honey of summer 

into my mouth; all day my body

accepts what it is. In the dark 

creeks that run by there is 

this thick paw of my life darting among

the black bells, the leaves; there is 

this happy tongue.

*I read a book last summer called What A Plant Knows.  I learned that plants have a lot going on upstairs, even without the help of a central nervous system.  They see--in a sense—and they feel.  The Venus flytrap is an obvious example of this.  Plants smell and can hold information for a few hours at a time.  It's an interesting book.  Anyone wants to borrow it?