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.

Added: on October 17th, 2005 at 12:06 AM | Viewed: 5825 times | Comments (2)

Poet: Galway Kinnell
Poem: Blackberry Eating
Volume: Mortal Acts, Mortal Words
Year: Published/Written in 1980

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