Vignette: Blackberry Daydream

In the fall, I had made a habit of visiting a local ranch produce market, where they sold fresh berries for 50 cents a basket; I enjoyed buying them by the pound and freezing them for a cheap sweet treat. I was eating up my treasure of blackberries one evening last November, and I began to imagine the berry patch they must have come from, and wondered if any had been overlooked, and left on the vine to freeze through the winter. It was a nice distraction of a daydream from the reality of the emotional stress in those days which were so troubling to me. I hope it's a nice little respite for you as well. Thanks!

These blackberries, whose stains smatter over stickery pricks of charred-umber brambles, in a month or so will be frozen-hard with glitter-frost, split open clean, dripping tears of icy jam in wilted patches of summer fruit and brush scrawled in withered strains across perennial garden-beds.

Today, in wane, they blister in black-purple bunches, tangled under shades of old-autumn woodsy withing, grown wild and long-due for picking; their tart-seedy sweet pulp spreads over thorn and dust, painting dark the rusty earth, while a heavy sky readies to rain.

This vibrant wine-fruit tempts more than what bees and dragonflies hover close to its buzzing scent; for, it is all I can consider in this moment. Life beyond the berry patch is not as simple and beautiful most days.