“Blackberry Season”
The kids used to pick with me.
Pick one
Eat three.
Their small smooth hands
would grow tacky with ripe purple juice;
and their kissable mouths became
stained with sweetness.
They methodically alternated
between plucking the fat berries
and sucking the “sticky”
off of each sugared finger tip
while continuing to
pick (one)
and eat (three).
Today I am harvesting alone.
But they are with me –
underfoot, by my side
smelling of dust and sugar,
reaching into the thicket,
bumping the pail,
getting their soft hair
snagged in the thorns;
I hear them giggling when I pause
to taste one gleaming-wet-black-bursting gem.
They are leaning into my heart
in the golden September sunshine,
always with me,
and the loneliness is gone.
© Martha Lee Phelps
martha phelps studio ~ creative on purpose 
What would I do/be without your poetry? Thanks for the lovely goosebumps, my dear.
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Sweet Annette! I’m always delighted to hear that goosebumps have been raised. Your photographs have the same affect on me. Love you, my friend.