Blackberries

In the early morning an old woman

is picking blackberries in the shade.

It will be too hot later

but right now there’s dew.

Some berries fall: those are for squirrels.

Some are unripe, reserved for bears.

Some go into the metal bowl.

Those are for you, so you may taste them

just for a moment.

That’s good times: one little sweetness

after another, then quickly gone.

Once, this old woman

I’m conjuring up for you

would have been my grandmother.

Today it’s me.

Years from now it might be you,

if you’re quite lucky.

The hands reaching in

among the leaves and spines

were once my mother’s.

I’ve passed them on.

Decades ahead, you’ll study your own

temporary hands, and you’ll remember.

Don’t cry, this is what happens.

Look! The steel bowl

is almost full. Enough for all of us.

The blackberries gleam like glass,

ike the glass ornaments

we hang on trees in December

to remind ourselves to be grateful for snow.

Some berries occur in sun,

but they are smaller.

It’s as I always told you:

the best ones grow in shadow.

Margaret Atwood

In my dreams she is mostly hugging me or asking me questions no one else does:

How are you? What are you thinking about? You are ok, aren’t you?

She always looks at me with these eyes full of “I want you to have every strawberry of this earth” and in my dreams I don’t feel lonely anymore, because I am loved by a woman who froze strawberries in our garden for me and then I discovered that she was not immortal. 

In the next life we will meet, I am sure of it, cause there is no other option for me and I want you to be my little sister, who I will love dearly and bring blueberries for breakfast, you love blueberries, don’t you?