BY SEAMUS HEANEY (for Philip Hobsbaum)
Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full,
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.
This short poem by Seamus Heaney speaks about the differences between childhood and adulthood and all the troubles one will come across as they make the transition. The whole poem initially appears to be about picking blackberries, but one has to look closer to see that the ripening and decaying blackberries are a picture of human life and death. When the berries are picked, they are at their best. These are the prime days of their lives. But, if they aren’t picked, they sit in the sun and their “blood” cools off. This leaves them to start decaying. To the speaker of this piece, the death of the berries does not seem fair. The berries, no matter how much he wants them to, don’t keep.
WASLA Teacher Librarian of the Year- 2017: Jo-Anne Urquhart
- 2016: Lise Legg
WASLA Library Officer of the Year- 2012: Karen Notley