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SARA'S FRUIT
She says last winter's storm brought down
her incense cedar in the back
Not onto any roof or fence,
thank god, but clean and parallel
It lay a while, just long enough
to grow a skirt of blackberries
until she bucked it into logs
and cleared it, tree and bramble both
Along its sawdust-outlined ghost
she plans a march of blueberries
where now sunlight can reach the ground
It isn't that she yearns to tinker
Her love flows strong through any chink
and uses alteration as
a race to ride her heart among
Nor does she hold the common berry
somehow less desirable
than cultivated, trellised fruit
She has a recipe for each
cobbled into syruped rounds
to set before her son the king
But now that she has reached a time
when she is done (or nearly so)
with self-regret --- Her tools are sharp
and oiled, her dreams
are in full spate --- Her line of sight
is good enough for any choice
And in that stretch of her back yard
she wants to harvest blueberries.
© Maggie Jochild
26 December 2003, 10:53 a.m.
On a train in the Santa Clara Valley, CA
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