for Philip Hobsbaum

Late August, given heavy rain and sun



For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.



At first, just one, a glossy purple clot



Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.



You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet



Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it



Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for



Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger



Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots



Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.



Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills



We trekked and picked until the cans were full,



Until the tinkling bottom had been covered



With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned



Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered



With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.







We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.



But when the bath was filled we found a fur,



A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.



The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush



The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.



I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair



That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.



Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.





