On a beautiful walk in the Ireland sun we picked blackberries yesterday.
On line, I came across this poem by Seamus Heaney:
“Blackberry Picking” can be found in Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966-1996. Heaney, born in 1939, won the Nobel Prize in 1995. According to his Nobel biography, he grew up as a country boy on a farm in County Derry, northern Ireland.
Blackberry Picking
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.
So, the moral of the poem is: you gotta eat ’em fresh . . . so we will.
wells-of-wellness 
What a great poem, here in Maine I am surrounded by” blueberries” everywhere, so right, fresh is everything! I laughed as I then had the images of you Phily holding patricia by her feet so you could ” pick” your lobster ” fresh”! ( I know sick but funny thinking!) Gladd u had an awesome” lobster feed”! I wonder if they probably taste like a Maine lobster, just might sound different when entering the “boiling pot” with their ” brough” , us I know, I am Illish!( is this a word? Hugs, nn
Jeremiah did the picking . . . and thankfully we met a chef who guided us into “the more humane way” of ending the life of the lobster before it goes into the pot. It was good . . . best I have eaten.
Yum! What memories you stirred about blackberries in Eagle River! And of course they’re at their very best when eaten or made into pie, jam, etc., within that 12 hour window. The poem reminded me of the time my cousin and I put the fruit in jars and buried it in the ground for later eating. Hmmmm, you know what we dug up in Oct. Loving all your tales, many jogging our memories of when we were in Ireland. It’s the best! XOXO Marlyn
Fun to think of you picking the berries in a younger Eagle River.
Yum!
Thought of you this morning when I saw a double rainbow over the Gulf.
Thanks, Lucy . . . Today is another day of beautiful sun here . . . so probably no rainbow for us
As a younster on the farm I picked a lot of blackberries in the woods and always got the jiggers!
The blueberry picking made me remember picking them in Oregon when the grands were little. We seldom got home with any because we had taken your poet’s advice and eaten them along the way
I’m just loving all your postings – almost feel as if I’m there! Thanks a heap. Fay
That fruit would look and taste lovely on one of my “Pavlovas”