You Were Probably Saving These Blackberries

Poet's Note: Who remembers now the lost memes of yesteryear? When I noticed this recently fledged Northern Mockingbird laying waste to my blackberry patch, I couldn't help but think of the plum tweets of 2017. William Carlos Williams's poem, “This Is Just to Say,” found itself mashed up to hilarious effect with such cultural items as The Killers classic “Mr. Brightside” and the apocryphal Ernest Hemingway six-word flash fic about baby shoes.

Blackberries are not plums. Learning-to-fly newly fledged Mockingbirds are not William Carlos Williams. And yet I find I have committed a poem.

I have eaten

the blackberries

that were in

your patch

and which I know durn well

you were saving

for that hefty butterball of a green parrot over there

Forgive me

but there were two other guys in my nest

and if I didn't eat these berries first

they would

so it was me or them

and I vote me

Those berries were bitter and not sweet enough yet

and not particularly cold since it's

already 80 degrees at ten o'clock in the morning

and you know what?

They were never going to get any older or any colder

or any more delicious

so you can stop saying that and so can Mr. Green

My two brothers were going to see to that

if I didn't so I did

As for the dirty looks I'm getting from that parrot

just for the record

that's one bird who needs to be aware

I can mimic anything he can mimic

The only reason I don't say, “Polly wanna cracker” is--

I don't have to

ask for my food anymore

I'm a big bird now and

I take my food

and you can't stop me

so there

If you enjoyed this poem and these photos, please tap that <3 button and/or consider leaving a small tip because any blackberries my 50-year-old yellow-crowned Amazon parrot eats will have to come from the grocery store!