Blueberry Hill
IWell,” she says, “I’ve done about all I can
in this bush. Try our luck by the high rock?”
“Unh-hunh,” says he. That’s all he says,
and he’ll keep on and on on that same bush
finding blueberries no matter how small
till he’s picked it clean. She’s not one to trifle
when there’s a chance for great big berries
nobody else has gotten to yet
this early in the season. “Really nice
over here,” she calls to him in a minute.
She hears no reply, but she sees he’s staying.
“Here’s a couple high bushes, really sweet.”
She bets he’ll come ‘bout time she’s had enough.
That’s only because she’s most enterprising.
That’s what Grandpa always used to tell her:
“You are a most enterprising young lady,
young lady.” The next time she looks, he’s moved
round to the side where she’d done her picking.
He’s squatting and reaching so deep into the bush
the seat of his overalls’s all she can see,
that, and the shining straw of his hat hanging
so’s to bump into when he straightens up again.
She doesn’t need too many more of these:
even at their ripest, they’re pretty tart.
Now she remembers a patch from last year.
“Come on, there’s beauties over by the wall!”
Again no answer. “That’s just like him!
He’s so patient he forgets what he’s up to!”
Clusters like grapes draw her beyond the wall.
“Oh, good! This way I don’t stare at the sun.”
Her pail is already almost half-full,
and what a variety! Some good for pies,
some for preserves and some for just plain eating.
He’s likely to pick a pail full of bland
just so they’re right there under his nose.
Retracing her path, she stoops to pick some lows
growing thick, fat, and spectacular,
then heads at last to that patch by the wall,
and there he is after all.
“I thought I’d never lay an eye on you
till you’d picked that first bush absolutely clean,”
she says. “I did,” says he. “But for a chickadee’s
flirting with me over in the birches,
I might have left sooner. But I’ve always
wanted to see whether their attentions
could possibly be deliberate or…
Oh, what a view! Those fields, that farm down there!
This hill top’s glowing with an enchanted air.
Every leaf is shining, every blade of grass.
It’s as though you could see every last atom
if this light would last long enough to look.
And look at you! Aren’t you an oread
of this mountain! Couldn’t you be naiad instead,
and spring us a fountain? I’m parched!
Seeing that his pail was all but full,
“If you pour some of yours in mine,” she says,
“we’ll finish this bush together and go.”