Blueberry picking at high noon. The radio said expect a breeze but I never felt one. It was so hot, with only my baseball cap for a slice of shade. And me in a pale gray silk blouse, how silly, but still it was lightweight. Picking first from one bush and then another, not wanting any one spot to grow too bare, always moving, slow, but moving. Bees buzzing nearby, dragonflies mating, then whizzing off. Careful not to separate families: these 3 berries look like sisters, take them all so no one’s lonely; a mom, a pop, 6 little babies — plop, plop, plop, plop, plop, plop, plop, plop, into the bucket. Well, you can call it crazy if you like but I don’t think that’s very nice. Filled that bucket up to the brim, took my time, I had lots of time. Later, after weighing the berries, there was lemonade, cold and sweet and only 50 cents. And on the way home, eating those berries, so many berries, my fingers never turned blue, and my tongue didn’t turn blue, not even my teeth. It was a perfect afternoon. And no bears came, either.
sweet berries
salt-slick with
sweat
ignore the mating dragonflies
though they
are not shy
