Uploaded September 2013 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
I found a reading by Seamus Heaney that was posted yesterday. He was a great reader.
youtube.com/watch?v=HhBK5_zLwJY
The pictures are from these sites:
Painting - Snipe's Farm by Jean Childs
jeanchildsbuzgo.com/index.php#.UiMt_xsqh8E
graduallygreener.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/wild-blackberries-part-1
patchworktimes.com/2009/08/05/blackberry-heaven
except for the second - after reading the poem I went into the field behind my house and took that picture of blackberries in the hedgerow. We'll be having blackberry and apple crumble for supper tonight.
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.
I found a reading by Seamus Heaney that was posted yesterday. He was a great reader.
youtube.com/watch?v=HhBK5_zLwJY
The pictures are from these sites:
Painting - Snipe's Farm by Jean Childs
jeanchildsbuzgo.com/index.php#.UiMt_xsqh8E
graduallygreener.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/wild-blackberries-part-1
patchworktimes.com/2009/08/05/blackberry-heaven
except for the second - after reading the poem I went into the field behind my house and took that picture of blackberries in the hedgerow. We'll be having blackberry and apple crumble for supper tonight.
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.
