Happy Days Of Berries And Blood

 Blackberry season is beginning.  The first few have made their way from vine to mouth.  A few drops of blood are a slight price to pay for tasting blackberries today. And if you go berry picking you will bleed.

In a few days I will be filling buckets with the purplish black fruit whose juice stains hands and clothing a rich purple.

July:  The Berry Picker 

July is the month for blackberries,

the solitary berry picker is diligent;

the berries have come in flushes

one after the other

and he has gotten most of them.

Becoming lost in thought

his fingers turn purple,

he thinks of fingers stained

and berries picked in summers long ago.

The berry picker has entered that no man’s land

where today and yesterday co-mingle.

Returning home he finds no one inside

and all at once he remembers and cries.

(The above poem was written a decade or more ago. I worked on it some.)

Blackberry blossoms are the promises of blackberries.

Blackberries ripe and more to ripen making July the time to fill the mouth and the freezer. Will they be jam, will they be wine? Will they be both? 

       Happy Days of Berries and Blood

One berry two days ago,

three or four berries yesterday,

a handful of berries today.

I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

Photography and poetry by David H. Roche

(C) 2014