Blackberry Authorities
When I first came out to the country
…… I knew nothing. I watched
as people planted, harvested, picked
…… the berries, explained
the weather, tended the ducks and horses.
When I first came out to the country
…… my mind emptied and I
liked it that way. My mind was like a sky
…… without clouds, a summer sky
with several birds flapping across a field
…… on the eastern horizon.
I liked the slowness of things. The empty
…… town, the lake stillness,
the man I met who seemed contented, who
…… sat and talked in the dusk
about why he had chosen this long ago.
I did better dreaming then. the colors
…… were clear. I found something
important in myself: capacity for renewal.
…… And at night, the sky so intense.
Clear incredible stars! Almost another earth.
But now I see there are judgments here.
…… This way of planting or that.
The arguments about fertilizers and organics;
…… problems of time, figuring how
to allocate what we have. So many matters
…… to fasten on and dissect.
That’s the way it is with revelations,
…… If you live it out, you start
thinking, examining. The mind cries out
…… for materials to play with.
Right now, in fact, I’m excited about
…… several new vines and waiting
for the blackberry authorities to arrive.
.
by Lou Lipsitz
from Seeking the Hook
Signal Books 1997