Thinking Autumn

BLACKBERRY EATING

Galway Kinnell

I love to go out in late September

among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries

to eat blackberries for breakfast,

the stalks very prickly, a penalty

they earn for knowing the black art

of blackberry-making; and as I stand among them

lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries

fall almost unbidden to my tongue,

as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words

like strengths and squinched,

many-lettered, on-syllabled lumps,

which I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well

in the silent, startled, icy, black language

of blackberry-eating in late September

We're picking our last wild blackberries.  Last night's frost-- the first of the season-- means I'll be putting my garden "to bed" soon.

Here are a few cards to say thank you and goodbye to beautiful summer and welcome old friend fall...

Thanks for stopping by!