Blueberry Orchard: Spring
I never thought of blueberry orchards.
I'd seen untamed bushes
dark and sooty red tipped
in deep wooded swamps
like wild cranberries
a few plants clustered
in tiny enclaves.
Like cranberries
incarcerated as livestock
in straight line bogs
contained and perfect
no longer wild
I pictured blueberries
precise and orderly
long straight rows
pollarded, easy picking
for machines.
Here, in a blueberry orchard
tugging constricted limbs
picking stalks and thready vines from twiggy fingertips.
combing long soft dry ochre grasses like coarse hair from the bases
easing snarling grey bearded poison ivy from the trunks
little twig whips sting
lip and cheek and eye
snapping out from nowhere
and never blood; a warning greeting.
Here, in a a blueberry orchard
Small enclaves
sun whitened bark and pink lichen
each blueberry stretched outward
reaching across rows
red tipped twigs
wildly tame.
I never thought of blueberry orchards.
I'd seen untamed bushes
dark and sooty red tipped
in deep wooded swamps
like wild cranberries
a few plants clustered
in tiny enclaves.
Like cranberries
incarcerated as livestock
in straight line bogs
contained and perfect
no longer wild
I pictured blueberries
precise and orderly
long straight rows
pollarded, easy picking
for machines.
Here, in a blueberry orchard
tugging constricted limbs
picking stalks and thready vines from twiggy fingertips.
combing long soft dry ochre grasses like coarse hair from the bases
easing snarling grey bearded poison ivy from the trunks
little twig whips sting
lip and cheek and eye
snapping out from nowhere
and never blood; a warning greeting.
Here, in a a blueberry orchard
Small enclaves
sun whitened bark and pink lichen
each blueberry stretched outward
reaching across rows
red tipped twigs
wildly tame.
