Daddy's Blueberries

The berry patch on the south side of the red clay hill

Looks strangely different from when Dad would still

Carefully transplant the first of spring’s early shoots

From the bushes that had stretched out their mindless, wandering roots.

The bushes are more open and clearer from my long pruning shears

And the shovel’s intrusion into the thickets that developed over years.

Small plants, grasses, roots, decaying mulch and fragile shoots

Are gently lifted by a rusting shovel assisted by muddy boots.

Dad began the task of thinning out the blueberry thickets

Long before I manned the shovel, he moved the tiny pickets.

“It’s good to share the wealth” he would always say,

As we lifted out a small sprout from the bramble fray.

At times the late frost and the cold were nature’s cruel way

To thin out the blueberries that were destined to go away.

Some years the bounty was too much, a teeming oversupply.

You never knew when or if and certainly not why.

But if we had plenty, oh, how our friends would enjoy

The little round berries, tasty mouthfuls of fruity joy.

By the quarts and gallons, those berry bushes would yield

A crop to share with many, their sweet treasure unsealed.

Dad knew the real treasure that he was willing to share

Was more than just the berries, their sweetness, their fare.

It was the bushes and the wealth of giving to another

The sharing of the plant, free berries for our brother.

So, when I give you blueberry shoots from Dad’s original patch

Plant them, cover well their roots, layer them with thatch.

I share them with you like they have been shared with me,

Daddy’s bushes and blueberries, a gift of love that’s free.    

 

Doug Gouge

March 2015