come blackberrying

Bright white paper-scrap butterflies
flit and flutter by the roadside,
beside the passing roaring cars
among their passengers’ discards –
cans and bottles, fast-food wraps,
brought by highway, the city’s scraps.

But walk with me into the trees,
where butterflies like autumn leaves
all rise and swirl, then drift to ground
in shades of russet, yellow, brown.
Ripe grasses wave their waist-high plumes,
and tethered between the thistle blooms
silken threads from jewelled spiders
catch the careless zephyr riders.
Come, follow me, up the hillside,
skirting the webs and thistles stride
to where the brambles arch and mound
and birdsong is the loudest sound.

We’ll pluck the fruit, so ripe and sweet,
some for our baskets and some to eat,
sweat slicked, hands pricked, faces glowing
stained by musky juices flowing,
‘til sated at last with fruit, my love,
come lie with me with just sky above.

Blackberrying, Lake George

There is water now where the sheep grazed,
a second blue sky
stretching from our feet to the hills
where paired upright and inverted turbines
turn slow semaphore signals.

Skirting the gate
and stepping over the fence,
avoiding sodden gullies and thistles,
we come to the bramble-mounds
where the sweet black musky berries wait.

Recycled honey-buckets over wrists,
one hand to steadies the stem,
while the other plucks the plump fruit,
some so ripe it drops at a touch.
We alternately fill the buckets
and ourselves,
until both are full near to overflowing.

Fingers and mouths stained purple,
hands and arms scratched,
we return home triumphant.

Pots bubble
and the scent of
dust, musk and summer heat
fills the kitchen
as we pour these dog-days of summer
into a dozen jars,
to be put away until we need
a taste of sunshine.

ko: blackberries and biting flies

Lisa at dVerse challenges us to write about or create a ko (micro-season). Full specifications (which I have not met) are listed below:

 

Major season (sekki, of which there are 24): late summer dog-days

Micro-season (ko, of which there are 72): Blackberries and biting flies

This is the season of hot days when we are ready for coolness, but are unwilling to accept that summer is almost gone. Holidays are over and school begins just as blackberries are ripening and shining invitingly on roadsides.

 

Seasonal vegetables:

Tomatoes are ripe in the garden, squash as swelling into scalloped-edged flying saucers. But these are incidental now – because this is the season when the blackberries ripen. The hard green clusters, eyed in passing for months, are swelling and darkening, and our impatience for them is at last washed away by inky-sweet juices. We gorge ourselves, fingers stained purple and buckets overflowing onto the kitchen table. Tarts and crumbles bake, despite the heat, jams bubble on the stove, filling the house with the musky, dusky scent of these summer-end days.

 

Seasonal activities:

Work and school are resumed, there is no denying that the year has started now as we pack lunches, pat pockets for keys, phone, wallet, ID, before the now-unaccustomed and resented commute. We envy the pig, as she wallows in the dam, mud drying like cement on her sides as she grumbles at the heat and flies. A hundred of these fat black biting flies perch on her, a flock of feeding vampires. When I shoo them away they rise in a buzzing black cloud, only to resettle on her, and on my own bare legs.

 

Haiku:

 

A stinging slap,

a flat black fly falls, leaving

a smear of blood.

The specifications (more information can be found at dVerse):

“The format for each kō is as follows:
•the title of the Major Season or Sekki
•outline why it is called that
•the title of the micro-season or kō
•outline why it is called that
•write a haiku that speaks to the kō
•include insider information on the haiku and include information about the poet (you)
•seasonal fish, information about it, and including ways to prepare it
•seasonal vegetable, information about it, and ways to prepare it
•seasonal activity, often including the holiday or tradition involved, etc.
•a preview of coming attractions for the next kō

In addition, there are images of artwork, drawings, photographs, etc. of the highlighted”

less than half the arc

for the dVerse prompt “always in season”:

The last of the summer has been scraped from the jar,
the last of the sweet purple-black stains
are dissolved away in the washing-up water,
and the last of the scent of heat and dust and musk
dissipates in the fresh spring air.

gluttony

white light blazes down
from a sky of purest hottest blue,
drawing out sweat
that tickles, trickles,
slicking skin
and stinging scratches,