Hand to Mouth

June 7 2020

Blueberries

in a white ceramic bowl,

a silver spoon

to scoop them out.

From forest to table

hand to mouth.

Still warm

in the late August sun

where they've been ripening all summer.

They are easy picking

this late in the season,

raking loosely spread hands

through small green leaves.

From the low bush

where they grew untended,

in sandy soil

in this northern forest

scorched by fire.

Before the bears gorge.

Before they shrink

in the desiccating heat

that will concentrate their sweetness

but leave them small and dry.

Before wild yeast

raining out of insubstantial air

ferment the over-ripe fruit

and turn them potent.

Still plump and firm.

Still bluish-purple

with a blush of white.

Smaller than commercial berries

and more variously sized.

No need to wash

wild fruit

we've picked ourselves.

No need to wait

for the fancy bowl

or fussy spoon.

No cold fresh cream

or adventurous pairing.

We, too, gorge like bears,

as if preparing for winter

and just as unmannerly.

With discoloured lips

and purple-stained hands,

bits of skin

between our teeth

to worry with our tongues.

I really admired and enjoyed this poem, by Maxine Kumin. It came to me via the Writers Almanac newsletter, which is curated by Garrison Keillor and arrives daily in my inbox.

Appetite
by Maxine Kumin

I eat these
wild red raspberries
still warm from the sun
and smelling faintly of jewelweed
in memory of my father

tucking the napkin
under his chin and bending
over an ironstone bowl
of the bright drupelets
awash in cream

my father
with the sigh of a man
who has seen all and been redeemed
said time after time
as he lifted his spoon

men kill for this

I envy her ability to distil and condense, in stark contrast to my weakness for prolixity.

I love how the memory of her father appears in this simple vignette. It's this personal and emotional touch that makes her poem work. If mine fails, it's because it's too bloodless.

What really inspired me was the smallness of subject, as well as how such a small piece allows so much scope in terms of sensation: sight sound and smell, as well as taste. Not to mention the emotional resonance of food in general.

Spellcheck red-lined “drupelet”. So I Googled, and it is a word: each little facet on a raspberry is a drupelet. Stumbling upon a lovely word like that is often enough to kick-start a poem!

I chose blueberries. Because it's my favourite fruit. Because I couldn't have done raspberries any better. And because a poem about the same berry would have been more derivative than inspired.

Oddly, though, my father also relished raspberries. They grew in the backyard of our first house. A suburban house, but wild fruit, since they were neither planted nor cultivated. He was not an outdoorsy guy, or really much attuned to the natural world. But he took great pleasure in harvesting the raspberries from our backyard. Unlike me, he had a sweet tooth, and his favourite was raspberry jam.