Wild Raspberries

The way they do is, they win out

over the tiny poplars, scrub pines, gum maples.

Bug-eyed with joy, they relax their bellies

into the woods. In a year or two, more shade, less

something in the soil, they'll digress,

an acre away, then another, wherever

they go. You can see how people could become obsessed.

This afternoon we fan out

among cabbage butterflies in the sticky

wilderness, pulling off the delicate cups with a loose

hand, disengaging them

as if they already barely exist, translucent bliss

of color. We are really into it, too many

berries crushing themselves in the buckets,

we go way out of bounds,

onto the Bunting's land and farther, looking down,

sorting through stems, the odor of

leaves, chasing the restless berries begotten and born

in this thicket of their own making, making themselves

happen, over and over, on their way to

someplace else, leaving raspberryless,

a little unblessed, these woods.