Bramble Berries

image from organiccrops.com

Bramble Berries

“He who sows brambles will reap thorns.”

--Spanish Proverb.

There was a time, when I was a kid,

a child not a goat, when picking

blackberries was a family affair.

Although, in praise of goats, it is widely

known that they are the best solution

for eradicating pesky thorn bushes.

They are a very sturdy plant. You can mow,

chop, burn, crush or dig at them, and they

will spring back when your back’s turned.

Most neighborhoods have a vacant lot,

or neglected corner where blackberries

can thrive, where the ripe fruit awaits.

They can grow in poor soil, ditches, steep

hillsides, and hedgerows; even in a

wasteland, and could devour a football field.

A dozen of us would show up in long-sleeved

shirts, jeans, and high leather boots, for

protection from the blood thirsty thorns.

We brought gardening gloves, and ladders

to drop over the six foot bushes, a handful

of band-aids, machetes, and sharp clippers.

We carried colorful plastic buckets and

rinsed-out coffee cans to hold our freshly

picked multi-pounds of bounty.

My grandparents called them cane berries,

because of the thick stalks, and they pointed

out that blackberries were not real berries, for

they were made up of seeded drupelets, cousins

to raspberries. My grandfather was fond of saying

that raspberries were a feminine fruit, where the

berry slips off the stem, leaving a cavern in the

middle, but blackberries had to be plucked,

and their erect stems remain intact.  

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub

Poem written in the style of Ted Hughes.