We collected pounds and pounds of Blackberries on our walk this afternoon, enough to freeze some, make a Blackberry and Apple Crumble and many jars of Blackberry and Apple Jam. I was reminded of Seamus Heaney’s poem as we went around though we have left none of them to go mouldy!
Juicy blackberries
Stile en route
The Zebra coat on this pony amused us
Blackberry and Apple Jam
Blackberry-Picking
for Philip Hobsbaum
Late August, given heavy rain and sunFor a full week, the blackberries would ripen.At first, just one, a glossy purple clotAmong others, red, green, hard as a knot.You ate that first one and its flesh was sweetLike thickened wine: summer’s blood was in itLeaving stains upon the tongue and lust forPicking. Then red ones inked up and that hungerSent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-potsWhere briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drillsWe trekked and picked until the cans were full,Until the tinkling bottom had been coveredWith green ones, and on top big dark blobs burnedLike a plate of eyes. Our hands were pepperedWith thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s.We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.But when the bath was filled we found a fur,A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.The juice was stinking too. Once off the bushThe fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.I always felt like crying. It wasn’t fairThat all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.Each year I hoped they’d keep, knew they would not.
I love the child’s voice in this poem – the ‘big dark blobs burned/ Like a plate of eyes’ , the reference to the Pirate, Blackbeard and the hope that the cans would stay full of blackberry sweetness, a disappointment that happened year after year.
afsheenanjum
August 24, 2018 at 12:22 pm
What a beautiful Zebra and his attire 🙂 , saw such thing first time 🙂
babyjill7...Marilyn Griffin
August 23, 2018 at 12:23 pm
My new blackberry bush…was coming on strong…until birds decided they were theirs…
mybeautfulthings
August 23, 2018 at 12:39 pm
I don’t mind sharing but don’t like every berry being taken! fair shares for all, I say! 🙂
valeriedavies
August 21, 2018 at 12:30 am
blackberry picking was one of my favourite times… wandering the fields behind the house, dropping the berries into a chip basket, and happy with no pressures from adults to get on with homework, make my bed, or do other unwanted chores! And then the bliss of blackberry and apple tart.
What a wonderful hoard of jam jars filled with nectar sally !!!
Arkenaten
August 19, 2018 at 7:08 pm
How wonderful. Brought back a few memories from when we were kids, let me tell you!