Blackberry Cobbler-Ripe Berries, Sugar, and a Little Love

The berries are gone. Eaten. Spent from the summer sun. What’s left is the memory of waiting for just the right moment to pick, then the sweetness, and finally, the joy of creating something new.

Let’s eat!

Blackberry Cobbler

My husband’s favorite
made with the berries
from his garden.
Bubbling butter
forming a cinnamon crust
purple juice swirling
lightly, warm, and sweet.

He asked for banana cream pie.
But the berries were
shouting from the freezer,
“It’s time!”
That was Sunday.
On Monday,
nothing remained
but the stuck-on pieces
clinging to the sides of the dish.

Love is like that.
Giving what you
don’t expect.
Receiving with
an open heart.

. . .

Big, juicy, purple blackberries grow in our garden. The Crows, Mockingbirds, and my husband clamor for the indigo berries.

The harvest transitions into a labor of love in the kitchen. Mixing flour, sugar, cinnamon, and butter, the fruit transforms into a bubbly dish waiting for whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, and a spoon.

My grandmother grew these purple orbs, but she called them dewberries. Shakespeare claimed that “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Dewberries, blackberries, the name does not matter; they taste as sweet.

They also grow wild along the roadside, on the banks of streams and lakes. No doubt, the birds carry off the seeds and deposit them unceremoniously across the countryside.

I wonder if our words travel the same way. Without much thought, we often scatter aimless words across the day. What are we planting? Kindness, trust, or more nefarious elements like hate or anger?

We have choices. Whatever we say spreads and grows. Why not make a better choice—what a difference a word can make.

Kindness.

I will never let go.

Blackberry wisdom . . .

“So it is with blackberries. If you pull too hard, you may get the berry but you will lose the sweetness of it. On the other hand, if you leave it, it may be gone the next time you come by. Each person must find this point of equilibrium for himself.”
—Robert Finch, Death of a Hornet and Other Cape Cod Essays