Poetic Fruits

At read.write.poem this week we were asked to write poems about food, and more particularly, Jill discussed writing about fruit.

I was going through the photos of our trip and came across a bunch of photos of blackberries which combined with a column on language in our Saturday newspaper to inspire this poem (bear in mind, it is a first draft only):

Blackberries

In country lanes we pause in the rush
from one castle to another, and gather
blackberries.
We ignore scratches to reach
for the juiciest branches,
learn to judge which are ripe and sweet.

The Hopi, they say, see the world differently
– see “wave” and “flame” and “meteor”
as verbs. Let us celebrate
the impermanence of blackberries.
Consider “blackberry” as a verb,
meaning “to ripen” “to gather water
and sunshine” “to fall into reaching hands”
“to stain lips and fingers purple"