Poem for Saturday and Larsen Lake Farm

Blueberries 

By James Lasdun 

I’m talking to you old man.

Listen to me as you step inside this garden

to fill a breakfast bowl with blueberries

ripened on the bushes I’m planting now,

twenty years back from where you’re standing.

It’s strictly a long-term project—first year

pull off the blossoms before they open,

second year let them flower, watch the bees

bobbing in every bonnet,

but don’t touch the fruit till year three,

and then only sample a handful or two...

Old man I’m doing this for you!

You know what they say about blueberries:

blood-cleansing, mood-lifting memory-boosters;

every bush a little fountain of youth

sparkling with flavonoids, anthocyanin...

I’ve spent all summer clearing brush

sawing locust poles for the frames,

digging in mounds of pine needles, bales of peat moss—

I thought I’d do it while I still could.

You can do something for me in turn:

think about the things an old man should;

things I’ve shied away from, last things.

Care about them only don't care too

(you’ll know better than I do what I mean

or what I couldn’t say, but meant).

Reconcile, forgive, repent,

but don’t go soft on me; keep the faith,

our infidels’ implicit vow:

“not the hereafter but the here and now...”

Weigh your heart against the feather of truth

as the Egyptians did, and purge its sin,

but for your own sake, not your soul’s.

And since the only certain

eternity’s the one that stretches backward,

look for it here inside this garden:

Blueray, Bluecrop, Bluetta, Hardy Blue;

little fat droplets of transubstantiate sky,

each in its yeast-misted wineskin, chilled in dew.

This was your labor, these are the fruits thereof.

Fill up your bowl old man and bring them in.

-------- 

Saturday was a gorgeous day, and it also happened to be Adam's birthday, though Paul and I didn't see him because he had plans all day with friends. Instead we did some shopping and went to pick blueberries at Larsen Lake Farm, where the lake overlook was closed because some kids managed to set it on fire on the Fourth of July, but we still got to see families of ducks, lots of flowers, and thousands of blueberries (we picked about four pounds).

 

We got home in time for nearly all of the Orioles game, which was great, and the Mariners game, which was fine until the seventh inning when they went down 3-2 and things only got worse from there. Now we're watching My Spy: The Eternal City, which like the first My Spy gets kudos for its female characters but its tone is wildly uneven -- too violent and crude for kids, too much teen drama for grownups. Hoping the girls save the day!