Blackberry Picking by Heaney

Blackberry Picking by Heaney

Late August, given heavy rain and sun

for a full week, the blackberries would ripen.

At first, just one, a glossy purple clot

among others, red, green, hard as a knot.

You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet

like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it

leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for

picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger

sent us out with milk-cans, pea-tins, jam-pots

where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.

Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills

we trekked and picked until the cans were full,

until the tinkling bottom had been covered

with green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned

like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered

with thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.

We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.

But when the bath was filled we found a fur,

A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.

The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush

the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.

I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair

that all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.

Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

I,love Picking Berries,and then eating them,right from the branch,even if I am pricked by a thorn or two,that is the price. Eating Wild Bewrries sustained me,for 3 days in the wilds of the White Mountains in New Hampshire,when I was lost there at age  19. Getting Lost with my Wife ,We have Always Loved Doing That. Getting Lost ,It is a Great Way to Get Found,espeicially if you have been Berry Picking.