Welcome August! This post is the second in a series (I guess we'll all find out how many there will be) of my musings on the poem "August Day" By Jane Hershfeild. This poem summons colorful flashes of my childhood, which I will gladly share with you. Click here to find my post Musing on an August Day - Day 1.
Here is Jane's poem:
August Day—
You work with what you are given —
today I am blessed, today I am given luck.
It takes the shape of a dozen ripening fruit trees,
a curtain of pole beans, a thicket of berries.
It takes the shape of a dozen empty hours.
In them is neither love nor love's muster of losses,
in them there is no chance for harm or for good.
Does even my humanness matter?
A bear would be equally happy, this August day,
fat on the simple sweetness plucked between thorns.
There are some who may think, "How pitiful, how lonely."
Other must murmur, "How lazy."
I agree with them all: pitiful, lonely, lazy.
Lost to the earth and to heaven,
thoroughly drunk on its whiskeys, I wander my kingdom.
Jane Hirshfield’s line, “fat on the simple sweetness plucked between thorns” rings of a summer I will never forget–the summer of blackberry jam. This summer, when I was eight, my mother, little sister, and I trekked through high fields and brambles on a mission for those big, sweet, purple berries.
We spent hours plopping them into buckets, baskets, and our bellies. In a couple of hours, fingers purple, arms, hands, and even faces scratched, chiggers and ticks finding hiding places in our skin, we made our way back home to wash the stray bugs off the little treasures with cold water in the sink.
There was something so adventures and satisfying about going out, finding, and bringing back the riches of the earth. We felt like miners bringing back raw gold and turning it into priceless rings, necklaces, and crowns.
After the berries were well-washed, we poured them into my mother’s old-fashioned, hand-crank berry crusher. This contraption separated the seeds from the juicy pulp and oozed the purplish goo into a large bowl below. Many hand cranks later, add sugar, heat, put it in a jar, and BAM!–blackberry jam.
It may seem easy, but it felt like we made jam for days. We gave those little jars of purple-black gold away at Christmas to our relatives in the city, who I’m sure never realized just how much effort, sweat, and scratches went into making each and every jar of pure delight.
