<html aria-label="message body"><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><span style="font-size: 22px;">Ode To Blueberries</span><div style="font-size: 22px;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Now that it's September, I want to thank blueberries.</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">I want to thank peaches, cantaloupes, cherry tomatoes</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">and corn on the cob. All summer long while we griped</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">about the Republicans, you were lying there in baskets,</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">blue eyes silently watching, blinking back tears.</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Some of you were whole crimson sunsets in my hand.</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">I'm not sure what antioxidants are, but thank you:</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">I know that you were full of them.</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">I loved your fuzz, buxom peach, your sass, blackberry.</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">I loved your smile, honeydew, halved and split</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">as we slobbered together. Local strawberry,</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">just one of you gushing on my tongue was almost</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">too much to bear. Next summer you could do a better job</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">of staying under three dollars a pint; otherwise, no complaint.</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">How erotic you are, plum, lounging in a sunbeam,</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">your crimson still-life, your sweated drops of fever!</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">You should be ashamed the way your waves imploded</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">on the beaches of my mouth: well, it was a scene!</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">But thank you. I also want to thank some of you flowers:</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">begonia, peony, chrysanthemum and lucifer crocosmia.</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">I do not forget the morning glory, that soft trumpet</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">made of sky, calling us inward toward granaries</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">of moonlight. And now, just as the rest of you languish,</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">the apples arrive! Round crimson shouts</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">from green caverns of Autumn afternoon.</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">O humans, we too might burst, an orchard of longings,</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">wild but rooted, globe-laden, corridored with fruit.</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">We might drop at the edge of the meadow,</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">silvered in flurries of milkweed and thistle-down.</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Why not bend to our ripening, the pungent smolder</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">of our inward sugars, the grace and gravity of Fall?</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Why not bow to the blessed sag of our limbs</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">in the gentle bruise of surrender on our knees?</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">We could lie on the bee-festered earth, hollowed, wormed</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">out with inner paths, free from every striving to rise. Why not let</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">this turning planet have her way with us, and do what she loves?</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Alfred K. LaMotte</span></div></div></body></html>