Thornless Brambles

“This,” she smiled across the table,
The winter sun angling low across teacups
And warm bread, “This was the summer
For blackberries.
There was no end to them, it seemed.
They grew in such profusion.
We picked them for the picking’s sake,
Not to eat them then and there
Or serve up fresh for supper.
We just picked and picked,
Watching them, jewel-like and black,
Fill up bowls and baskets.
And somehow that row of canes
Gave us more and more.”

She nudged the bread in my direction.
“Try the jam,” she said.
“We turned some berries into jam
And some into cordial
To take the nip off winter.
But the remarkable thing,
More than the taste of the jam or cordial,
More than the taste of the berries
Taken home for supper
Or eaten then and there in the midst
Of those thornless brambles,
More than the use or the taste, then or now,
Was the giving out of more and more and more,
The sheer profusion of that row of canes.”