Tara. I love your poem and the WCW reference. I’m a teacher and I once published a book of apology poems written by students- we wrote off of WCW too.
Also, I regularly eat our share strawberries and tell my family that one day I will them some. They are so delicate and must be eaten right away, really, so I’m doing everyone a favor.
There really is nothing quite like it. We had tiny little wild strawberries that grew in the lawn when I was a kid. I would crawl around on my hands and knees searching for them before my parents mowed. The wild berries also grew in the hay fields nearby which my friend's dad owned. We'd go along for haying and ride on the drag to "help" but all we did was watch for patches of berries to be exposed and we'd jump off and gobble them up. Strawberries definitely loomed large in my childhood. Thanks for reading!
LeeAnn, I used to get in so much trouble for eating too many strawberries. But I couldn't help myself. On my birthday my mom would buy an extra quart of berries just for me. Heaven. Thanks for reading!
Beautiful, Tara!! Your words really play like little videos/vignettes in my mind as I read them. Add Maine to the list of places I have only visited in poetry, but what a journey it is!
Mike, I love the experience of reading your poems - it's always so evocative, like being immersed in images. Sometimes I think my stories are not poetic enough to be called poetry. But I'm glad to hear you find them evocative, just in a different way. Thanks as ever for reading, and also for your writing.
Absolutely. Many years ago we lived down the road from a strawberry farm with a pick-you-own. I thought they should weigh our girls before and after, because as you know, you can’t just have one.
That sensation of a berry still hot from the sun that was growing it has to be one of the most pleasant and vivid sensory experiences from my childhood. Nothing like it. Thanks for reading, Nelly, and for the inspiration.
Thanks, Margaret. It really is a little story, and I realized as I was writing it that there were other stories buried in it, as well. Like one about growing up a VERY shy child in a family of talkative teacher-types and always feeling like nobody liked me as much as them. And one about the country road I grew up on and how it could be so quickly transformed into a scary place by a car that drove too fast or too slow. And on, an on. I have the sense that your brain works in a similar way. At least we'll never run out of things to write about. 🤗💕
If we didn’t live on opposite coasts, I would wonder if we lived on the same country road at one point :). My family moved to the country for a few years and the bus would drop me off at the bottom of a hill. I would walk home on the side of the road bordered by blackberry bushes, eating my way home when I could. But once in a while a car would come down the road and it was the same thing—so scary to be there, weighed down by a backpack, with only a big bush of thorns to jump into if needed.
Tara. I love your poem and the WCW reference. I’m a teacher and I once published a book of apology poems written by students- we wrote off of WCW too.
Also, I regularly eat our share strawberries and tell my family that one day I will them some. They are so delicate and must be eaten right away, really, so I’m doing everyone a favor.
Nice to find you here. Here’s a post I think you might like. https://open.substack.com/pub/pocketfulofprose/p/the-transformative-power-of-blackout?r=qqbxq&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Lovely poem. I cant resist a strawberry. The big fat June ones that are full and juicy... Good god. Love strawberry season.
There really is nothing quite like it. We had tiny little wild strawberries that grew in the lawn when I was a kid. I would crawl around on my hands and knees searching for them before my parents mowed. The wild berries also grew in the hay fields nearby which my friend's dad owned. We'd go along for haying and ride on the drag to "help" but all we did was watch for patches of berries to be exposed and we'd jump off and gobble them up. Strawberries definitely loomed large in my childhood. Thanks for reading!
I want to get some strawberries now! And I love how you start just having a few from the new basket on the way home, a perfect ending to the poem.
LeeAnn, I used to get in so much trouble for eating too many strawberries. But I couldn't help myself. On my birthday my mom would buy an extra quart of berries just for me. Heaven. Thanks for reading!
There's a subtle humor in the beginning that I love! By the end of this I had a hankering for berries myself!
Thanks, Daniel. So glad you enjoyed this one. I hope you can find some strawberries.
Beautiful, Tara!! Your words really play like little videos/vignettes in my mind as I read them. Add Maine to the list of places I have only visited in poetry, but what a journey it is!
Mike, I love the experience of reading your poems - it's always so evocative, like being immersed in images. Sometimes I think my stories are not poetic enough to be called poetry. But I'm glad to hear you find them evocative, just in a different way. Thanks as ever for reading, and also for your writing.
Absolutely. Many years ago we lived down the road from a strawberry farm with a pick-you-own. I thought they should weigh our girls before and after, because as you know, you can’t just have one.
Monica, I LOVE the image of a scale for kids at the pick-your-own field. Now I'm imagining an illustrated children's book... Thanks for reading.
Warm from the field. What a sensation 🥰
That sensation of a berry still hot from the sun that was growing it has to be one of the most pleasant and vivid sensory experiences from my childhood. Nothing like it. Thanks for reading, Nelly, and for the inspiration.
This makes me smile. I love this little story 💛.
Thanks, Margaret. It really is a little story, and I realized as I was writing it that there were other stories buried in it, as well. Like one about growing up a VERY shy child in a family of talkative teacher-types and always feeling like nobody liked me as much as them. And one about the country road I grew up on and how it could be so quickly transformed into a scary place by a car that drove too fast or too slow. And on, an on. I have the sense that your brain works in a similar way. At least we'll never run out of things to write about. 🤗💕
If we didn’t live on opposite coasts, I would wonder if we lived on the same country road at one point :). My family moved to the country for a few years and the bus would drop me off at the bottom of a hill. I would walk home on the side of the road bordered by blackberry bushes, eating my way home when I could. But once in a while a car would come down the road and it was the same thing—so scary to be there, weighed down by a backpack, with only a big bush of thorns to jump into if needed.
Wonderful strawberry inspired and infused poem, Tara — perfect for these early days of summer.