Blueberry Barrens     

                                                         

Buy or pick a few pints of them

and you feel as though

you’ve struck it rich. 

          

         Suddenly it’s blueberry everything:

         pancakes, pies, tarts and cobblers;

a stampede of berries in your cereal

that stains your teeth dark blue. 

They sprout near the coast in low fields

that get burned every other year;

they say ash sparks a sweeter crop. 

You stand beside a row of low bushes,

nothing special, an ordinary green

until light strikes at just the right angle

and all at once tiny spheres appear,

an intense blue hue,

a field of sapphires

far as the eye can see.

 Lubec, Maine