Wild Blackberries

In July sunshine
amid thorns and yellow butterflies
I gather warm, wild blackberries.

I walk the path home
through the woods. I know
which tree will fall soon,
the orphaned fawn
who will not survive.

Summer sounds—
cricket, cicada, mourning dove—
promise their fade to quiet winter.

Spring will return
who can doubt
certain death,
abundant life after
somewhere, always
the river water-flow
conversation.

I inhale nature's moment,
smell and taste this
ripe energy, sweet ephemera
of plump, wild blackberries.

~Carol Bindel

Oh, yes, doesn't everyone have a wild blackberry poem? my friend who is a very good and sophisticated poet said when she first read this. Perhaps. However, I didn't aim for sophistication.

The wineberries finished completely while I was laid low, and though I haven't had the strength to walk to the big patch of blackberries uphill, the small patch on the back lane is done, the berries dried, just gone.

My poem remembers.