lessons picking berries

 

things you learn picking strawberries:

you are old.
joints hurt bent among the rows
so close to the ground.
 I am old, true
but then when I was  young
I would not have been picking strawberries.
others would have done it better.
and the berries, hiding in the straw
would not have reminded me
of my own shy child
meeting his new teacher
pressed damp and nervous to my legs.
when I was young, I would not have smiled
to think of the food the berries would make
for my family – spoonbread,
pies, jam.
when I was young, the packages
disappeared into my grandmother’s kitchen
and came back out as plates of food.
I didn’t understand then the alchemy
of sugar, crust, butter and milk.
my grandmother had a hard life
and didn’t suffer children well.
certainly,
not in the kitchen.
I was never forgiven the Thanksgiving
I was underfoot
when the turkey came out of the oven.
for her mistakes were indelible
like berry juice
spilt on white shorts.
when my grandmother died
my mother asked me if I would like her recipes.
she’d lost use for them years ago,
-in fact , long before she left.
I use them to make jam
while my own children sit on the kitchen floor
coloring, stuffing berries into their mouths.
even as a child I knew
I knew it was better to be old.
to be old picking berries.