Blackberry-Picking

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

This poem, set in the rural outdoors reminded me of spending time in the fields or on the mountainsides picking berries, and I was attracted to the feeling of never wanting those moments to end.

This poem is written in iambic pentameter, for example the first line could be broken up as “late aug|ust, giv|en heav|y rain| and sun”. The rhyme of this poem is set up as AABBCC etc. throughout the poem. In line 3, the author says, “a glossy purple clot” instead of stating it is a ripened berry and in line 8, “Then red ones inked up”. Heaney uses diction to portray the excitement, through the use of clear imagery. Throughout his poem, the imagery, describes the innocence of the child and his naivety to the world around him. Through further research, I also learned that “Bluebeard” mentioned in line 16 is a French folktale, a story in which the character murders many of his wives. This is an example of allusion, with the reference “our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s.”