(for Rich Preuss)

Early August, a couple weeks before school starts,
blackberries surprise us.
We’ve worked had all summer long, and so have the tawny blackberry roots.
My father’s mammoth maze of brambles lining the silver stained cedar fence
is hoarding delicate fruit, is fulfilling its purpose at last.
We come home, and there they are,
staring, dozens of purple-black spider eyes of sweetness.
They shine like polished pearls and mirror in evening light
the gun spits of water sprinklers. Fat aggregate of glimmering mini-grapes,
Not those skimpy, miniscule black raspberries growing in corners of cramped suburb lots -
menial portions no boy would be satisfied with.
No, these are the best nature has to offer, and every season is better than the last
because there is always enough and it only comes once a years.

Summer work is done;
half-inch pointed thorns like doctor’s needles or Protestant steeples
will not give up secret groves of fruit shielded by fuzzy green leaves,
but we miss nothing. Stabs make us stronger, juice more precious
than blood; the struggle pushes arms further in, it only builds our lust for more.
Tickle the fat ones, fall, hit the bowl, tink, tink, tink.
This sacrosanct splurging requires several pounds of treasure, rush
to the kitchen, the rinse. Tumble in bowls with milk and sugar turning a rich purple.
Chuckling and hooting, we rush to the swimming pool
prancing like Indians, bare feet through wet summer grass.
Feet in water, facing the resting sun, we toast our bowls
and begin shoveling.

In the moment almost gone I understand,
a five-year-old boy again free for simple summer pleasures.

When we’re finished, my friend turns to me smiling
with purple-stained lips, purple milk dripping down his chin,
gooey chunks of purple flesh caught in the teeth of his enormous grin,
and says, “Few things beat this!”

Andrew Dits is a senior at Trinity School at Greenlawn in South Bend, Indiana, where he started “The Trinity Review”. He began writing under the tutelage of Brother Paul Quenon (who studied poetry with Thomas Merton) at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. Andrew has had poems published in six journals and in the collection, "Monkskript", edited by Quenon, which included a piece by Seamus Heaney. Coincidentally, Andrew read “The Picking” for a Fine Arts Fellowship competition at Wabash College in Indiana the same weekend TDR posted the poem. 

Update ... Andrew writes: "The competition at Wabash College went very well. I took first place." Congratulations, Andrew!