In the Kingdom of the Ditch

Morning Poem

24 Morning Poem Blackberries hang in the darkest creases of the trellis, each dimpled to bursting. The black-eyed Susans are mostly black, their yellow tresses already rotted. Goldfinches wander the air, meditate upon the coneflower’s sharp seed, trying to discern if it’s time to leave. This early, before anyone has opened their doors, I watch chickadees sidle up to sunflowers or hide in cosmos while cricket song sifts through the screens like fog in the belly of this valley. I’ve been making jam most of the month, and the jars from last night’s batch have been talking, lids sinking toward sweetness with a satisfied metallic ping. The weatherman warns of frost, so after the air warms this morning I’ll scoop the last bits of black from the canes’ green strings, bottom press the potato-masher to render the berry syrup into a bowl the color of nightshade. Other birds will dawdle through, but none will be dressed as brightly as the finches who helped greet the dawn. If there’s any consolation in the dying we must do, then let it be stored on a shelf in a raised glass jar, adorned with pictures of strawberries and cherries, grapes and pears, the pale seeds that fix in the cracks of our teeth, floating in a sticky infusion we lick from the ends of our breakfast spoons. ...