Can you tell me what happened to the blossom
Blackberry blossom when the summertime came?
The blackberry blossom, oh the last time I saw one
Was down in the bramble where I rambled in the spring
The days pass and some days I notice almost nothing new. I do the watering, lug tubs of soil around, hang out the laundry. The days are hot. This morning there’s a little smoke in the air, maybe from the fire near Lytton, blown over the mountains, or maybe from the one near Halfmoon Bay. The other day some miscreants near us managed to start a small fire near Ruby Lake, where we swim each morning. I heard helicopters, sirens, and by the time a friend called to tell us about the drama, the fire was out. The days pass.
This morning, the water was smooth as satin. No kingfishers — I love it when they skim over the water to land in the group of cedars I use for orientation when I’m swimming on my back — and the loon that shadowed my swim two mornings ago was nowhere to be seen. A few swallows dipping and swooping. I swam and then I hung in the water like a string for few minutes, marvelling at how a body only needs a little flutter of hands to keep from sinking. I closed my eyes. A boat at the other end of the lake. Crows. John was reading in his chair under the big fir, having finished his swim earlier than me. I was thinking of the day ahead, the watering, whether or not to haul a tomatillo out of the greenhouse that seems to have a virus on a few of its leaves. (Not flea beetles. Not thrips. And the plant is otherwise big and healthy, with lots of flowers.) What a luxury, to hang vertically in the water, thinking. The hardhack was coming into bloom, a small trout flipped out of the water near me, a silver comma in the morning. Pause. Think.
No one else at the beach. Such quiet. A car now and then on the highway up above me. I am a comma in my life right now, paused. Thinking. What comes next? A list, two clauses, a phrase? I thought of a song I’ve loved for years, Michelle Shocked’s “Blackberry Blossom”, and sure enough, when we walked to the car, there were swallowtails in the blackberries. drawn to the sweet flowers. In 6 weeks, we’ll be picking the fruit, making pies, jam, the simple ice-cream that Brendan loves. In the sweet flowers, the swallowtails. A crow in the maples. Time to start the watering.
The bramble was wild, I was torn by the briars
My love he wooed me as I lie there
With a flower in my hair and my cheeks all flushed
Was the blackberry blossom from the blackberry bush?
