No image today. I’m too tired.
She needed blackberries
to make jam. He put on
his toughest pants, his
heaviest shirt, grabbed
two buckets in his gloved
hands. Up basement steps,
past his neighbor's house,
he crossed a busy avenue
to many vine-choked acres.
Two bucketfuls likely would
not be enough, but his work
calmed him. Berries dropped
rapidly into his buckets.
She can start with these—
I'll go back for more later.
He had built cabinets to store
all those things she put up.
They lined one side of their
basement. He didn't gather
apples for applesauce, nor
raspberries for jams, or
any other produce. Just
blackberries. When he
marked seventy years,
many acres of vines
disappeared to make way
for a heralded research
campus. When five years
had passed, his patch
overgrown with vines
had been transformed,
awards were awarded,
but he now had further
to go, slimmer pickings.
She stopped making jam
anyway. They were both
getting too old, she said.
89/100
100 poems in 100 days
