birds and berries

 Now we have grackle babies, and I like to see them. I like blackbirds, maybe because they aren't vain.

I also like blackberries.

from the supermarket

Someone returned a Mary Oliver book at the library and I took it home, but haven't got past the first poem.

AUGUST

                                                 When the blackberries hang
                                                  swollen in the woods, in the brambles
                                                  nobody owns, I spend

                                                  all day among the high
                                                  branches, reaching
                                                  my ripped arms, thinking

                                                  of nothing, cramming
                                                  the black honey of summer
                                                  into my mouth; all day my body

                                                  accepts what it is. In the dark
                                                  creeks that run by there is
                                                  this thick paw of my life darting among

                                                  the black bells, the leaves; there is
                                                  this happy tongue.