The berries

It is my custom to pick blackberries in the heat of the day. Perhaps I relish discomfort: the heat, the muggy late-June or early July weather, the thorny canes interspersed with other thorny canes and exuberant vines, poison ivy among these. I always end up scratched, sweaty, sunburned, and itchy; but I end up with blackberries.

Picking at midday means I encounter fewer mosquitoes, for one thing. And in midday I am likely to be the only berry-gatherer in the thickets. Everyone seems to love blackberries and mulberries—which ripen about a week earlier, so these berry seasons overlap. Everyone! Birds, squirrels, deer, foxes, groundhogs, raccoons, possums, bears…

Blackberry fruiting gives way to blueberries, and blueberries to wineberries and elderberries, so that bellies get filled and seeds get dispersed all over the place. I hear rustlings in the hedgerows and at the edge of the woods at night, so yes, I would rather loot my fruit when only “mad dogs and Englishmen” are outside.

Tonight, we’ll have berry cobbler.

I’m still not writing very much new work, but blackberry picking brought to mind this poem from quite some time ago. The poem’s speaker is hiking, not berrying, but I thought of it just the same.

~

Bear & CloudburstBlue Ridge, 4200 feet:we start our ascent, sweetcicely going fast to seedtrailside goldenrod in bloom.Bees hover and hum,we walk one by one by one by onesummer-heat left behindsmothered in pipe vine.Track and blaze. Trail climbsthrough laurel—twisted, dryfrom two years’ drought, skyovercast, color of thin wheybut the ranger doubts rain,has hoped too long, in vain.As we file by, he waves.Further up. Dense shrubsthickets of berries slubbedlike raw silk, leaves daubedwith stippled insect eggsor lichen, fungus, swagsof spider webbing, sacs and bagsand butterflies, brute gnatsundeterred by repellent. We swatstobs, are scratched. The scatalong trailside I recognize as bearbut say nothing, though a fearthreads my ribs tightly whereinstinct thumps. Our feet trampsoil, each step sounds the tampof soles ascending; camp’sfour hundred meters’ altitudebelow. Skeletal crane-fly skeweddry in a web. We walk through woods, a clearing up aheadwhen a pungency atteststo recent presence, and Alice says“There’s a funny smell.”Her voice seems oddly small.We summon our collective will,engage in loud conversation.Bears aren’t known for discussion,are likely to flee in disgust. Then,thunder. Air, though thin,grows humid. Under the dinthe tree-line beginsto go, our path exposedas a blade of lightning explodesahead, just to the north.Pick up the pace. Slouchback to the undergrowth, the touchof brambles like a scutchon skin. We scuff the leavesin the musky, bracing odor, pleasedto be off-summit, our speedfaster than before and louderas we plunge downhill and wonderwhere the bear has wanderedand if it’s found shelter.We’ve half a mile to weatherin the rain. I slip. I’d ratherclimb into some outcropped sweephidden beneath a sweetgum tree,nuzzle the berry-breathed bear, and sleep.