A Blackberry Memory

Along the blighted, gray wood

of the cedar crossbuck fence

at farm's edge,

grow the supple green branches of

a blackberry bush of memory .

Thicker, second-year canes cradle pea-sized buds

too tender to gather up the pieces of the past,

these tiny verdant pillows create history

rather than recall it.

And so we tumble and run

around our summer sun

until white blossoms of recollections

burst open and dot the blackberry bush,

with delicate white eyes and velvet green pupils

that show more flower than fruit,

more pride than prudence,

they must await the wisdom brought by

sun, soil, rain, and bees

that pollinate their powdery thoughts

into firmer fruit that softens our sad nostalgia.

For too soon those white blooms of alabaster youth

twinkle,

wrinkle,

brown,

and fall.

We pine for the return to the white flower's purity,

rushing to brush an image around it

to protect and preserve it.

But the glossy drupelet globes

of a young, green blackberry

cluster together in tangents of jade spheres.

We must let the days age them, shape them, into

the revised and redacted histories

that will anchor and hold us

when deluge and heartache rip through our branches.

The blackberries grow stronger,

waiting for the gentle mist of meaning

to temper and fill the expectant globes

with the flavors, moments, sufferings and solace.

and pull from them their greenness,

Pale and waxen, they watch

for our daydreams to mix the chroma

on the palette of our tainted imagination

that will paint the berries of memory

into rich landscapes, awash with soft pinks

that bleed under their pale skin

We must marshall and manipulate them

changing what they were

into the lies and half-truths

drawn from visions of lives lived and not lived.

Now, as we age, we seek solace,

the blackberry memories flush deep red,

blushed by their shaded dishonesty

rouged by their naked honesty,

The ruby berries tempt us to harvest them

in their damasked disguises

and if we succumb,

we find them biting and bitter -

too acrid, red, and raw for a blackberry memory.

So we must grow old and silent

and watch for the blooded berry

to wane dark with age and signal to us

its harvest time is near,

but it is not now.

We must not pluck that memory

until it reaches its midnight glory,

Lest we fall into the lie that urges us to hurry to harvest,

for if the berry is tinged with the slightest kiss of red

hidden under a single black sphere,

the bite will pucker your mouth and mind,

Leaving only the acrid feeling of

a lost memory,

whispered into the wind.

No, we must show the patience required by late summer

and ripen our blackberry memories

in the fever-heat of August,

letting them mellow, soften, and swell,

into something awaited and created,

so that when we finally taste the fruit

of our hard-fought harvest

we can close our eyes and lean back

into the sweetened embrace of

a blackberry memory.