Blackberries
by Cecilia Leibovitz, posted on May 12th, 2010 in The Food Issue
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This was before we took
the tiny apartment in the city.
We had that rambling Victorian,
kids coming out of every
window and door.
Through that one pane
of wavy glass,
left over from when
the house was first built,
all the other houses
and the street,
looked like an old
photograph–
some details you couldn’t
quite make out,
so you’d imagine them in.
Underneath the stairs
a triangular wall
framed a little wooden closet
that had a hook and eye lock
to keep it closed.
If you crouched down
low and opened it,
you could look
through that door,
where there was once
a long path
leading to the kitchen.
The odd shaped wall
was the perfect spot
to decoupage with
pictures and clippings
from old books,
a project that took hours
but was worth it.
Much as we loved that place,
droning lawn mowers
and smoke from neighbors’ grills
were an excuse to escape.
One late August Saturday
the 6 of us
got into your Volvo,
headed toward those idyllic
dusty roads,
panorama of sunlit mountains
around us.
You held me with your eyes
the whole way there,
like you’d have a thousand babies
so we could do this forever,
our lives going on like this
until the end.
Then we reached our spot,
in the Northeast Kingdom
and the kids climbed out.
The first thing we noticed
was the blackberries.
There were so many.
To be there again…
picking blackberries,
fat baby on my hip,
his gray green eyes
wide puddles of wonder.
Never mind the bills
or fear of foreclosure,
knowing next year,
this land could slip
right out of our hands.
Standing in brambles
careful to avoid thorns,
I didn’t mind
the berries
would never make it into
a pie or jam–
they were that good.
Watching the bigger kids
tumble through the field,
endless woods behind them,
berry-stained faces.
This
was the reason,
was what we held
it all together for.
And we always said
being in Craftsbury
was like standing
on top of the world.
Jennifer Cooper Says:
