The Last of the Blackberries

These solitary meetings

I have learned to treasure –

The stir of leaf litter against the boots 

Relegated to ‘country walks’.

Blackberries survey me

Their crony stalks, ancestral eyes

In fresh rainwater, see

My swaying figure tainted by computer chairs,

Climbing stairs

The usual times.

Fruits now largely overripe

Splitting at the seams and crusted

Like dried speech

On a tongue of leaves

The type he would spit and say

‘They’re past it’.

Past it

Pastiche

All these modern terms, and turns

Grace the lonely mouth

On the autumn morning

Where thorns in the fingers

Still sweetly

Hurt.

My head, half-bent

To hear the children coming.

But they don’t

Instead the breeze

Breathes back the old scent

Of fruit

 Tightening on the vine

And I crush them now

In adult hands

Used to holding silence, seriousness,

Time.

There is a cold

Which comes with grief

Realising childhood and a father’s

‘Passed it’

The days of blackberrying with

Ice-cream tubs.

Now the season’s gone

My smile is plastic.