Blueberry Management Area

Blueberry Management Area

Ringed by hills dark and darker,
Looking over humps and shoulders,
Sitting on prickly plants,
A rock at my back
With its lichen map,

The sun sifts through me
To my firm fleshed days,
A child at my skirt,
One asleep in the ferns,

Moving like a mama bear
Slow and wary through
The blue fruit, filling my tin,
Not for the economics of it,

But for the freedom of the high air
And seeing farther than a wooded dooryard.
A picnic of rough bread, cheese, and
Water from my spring, a feast
And we stain our teeth with blue smiles.

Now here I am still, those children
Gone from me; we were so thick then,
Waking, touching, moving through
The day, tied together with our needs.

But here, this summer on a hill,
All the same again. The calling
Of small voices, pines ringing the meadow,
Cicadas winding out their song.