"the ripest berries / fall almost unbidden"
sensory experience = saving grace
May you be startled by the taste of a fruit today. May your anger be fruitful today. May none of your loved ones be deported or harmed today. May you see a way today. Taste, wail, day.
Malva, watercolor, Albertus Jonas Brandt (Amsterdam 1788-1821)
Blackberry Eating
by Galway Kinnell
I love to go out in late September
among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries
to eat blackberries for breakfast,
the stalks very prickly, a penalty
they earn for knowing the black art
of blackberry-making; and as I stand among them
lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries
fall almost unbidden to my tongue,
as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words
like strengths or squinched,
many-lettered, one-syllabled lumps,
which I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well
in the silent, startled, icy, black language
of blackberry-eating in late September.
From Mortal Acts, Mortal Words (Mariner Books, 1980)
Creative Invitation:
When did you last eat food from a live branch, stalk, stem? What was that food?
If you are under threat, afraid for your safety, I am here for you.
Thx you for this 🙏
A dear friend planted raspberry canes in our backyard. Since then we have learned to pick the fat berries, then drop them into our open mouths. Even our dog has learned to pluck the red berries directly onto his tongue.