Picking Blackberries
What will you give for a taste
of summer's last sweetness?
This jewelled crown of thorns
rings every path and highway,
No use pretending you
have not heard sweet tempatation
chatter through the vines - -
taste, eat
Put your hand in the thorns
and come out dripping juice,
king's purple spread from
hand to tongue.
Reach gently,
or you will find your thumb
full of thorns, and your pail
filled with unbearable tartness.
Reach gently, but reach
The sweetest berries hide
toward the inside, hidden
beneath leaves barbed like critics.
Balance, if you must, precariously,
held by will and longing form
the net of thorns. If you want
the ripest fruit, relinquish safety.
Guard yourself only with these words:
Peril, abundance
whispered like a prayer
through purple lips.