August is the season of ripeness where I live. I'll be picking blackberries this month, free for the taking all over western Washington where they're non-native and invasive as all get-out. But they're worth the trouble to mash through a sieve and turn into seedless blackberry jam. Or mix with other berries to make bumbleberry jam. Maybe I turn them into fruit leather. I may make some berry-flavored vinegar while I'm at it. Or wait, I found this page with several recipes including a blackberry apple chutney that sounds really tasty and I do love chutney....
I'll be thinking of Mary Oliver as I pick.
"August" by Mary Oliver
When the blackberries hang
swollen in the woods, in the brambles
nobody owns, I spend
all day among the high
branches, reaching
my ripped arms,
"Ordinary Time" by Jay Parini
I shift through woods, sifting
the air for August cadences
and walk beyond the boundaries I’ve kept
for months
"You Can't Have It All" by Barbara Ras
and when it is August,
you can have it August and abundantly so.
"Cherry Tomatoes" by Anne Higgins
Suddenly it is August again, so hot,
breathless heat.
"August Morning" by Albert Garcia
Such still air. Soon
the mid-morning breeze will float in
like tepid water, then hot.
"Under a Sturgeon Moon" by Mike Orlock
The month has the feel of compromise
and yield, as we mark time in a steady march
to the inevitable surrender of fall.
But that moon!
"August Moonrise" by Sara Teasdale
The maples stamped against the west
Were black and stately and full of rest,
And the hazy orange moon grew up
And slowly changed to yellow gold
While the hills were darkened, fold on fold
To a deeper blue than a flower could hold.
"California Hills in August" by Dana Gioia
I can imagine someone who found
these fields unbearable, who climbed
the hillside in the heat, cursing the dust,
cracking the brittle weeds underfoot,
wishing a few more trees for shade.
"Late August" by Mary Chivers
Even on the most tranquil
late August afternoon when heavy heads
of phlox bow in the garden
and the hummingbird sits still for a moment
on a branch of an apple tree—
even on such a day,
evening approaches sooner
than yesterday,
A Year of Poems
