Blueberry August Sky

This northern island,
a profusion of tiny plants, everywhere
cluttering pre-Cambrian ledges.
Smokey blue dancers
bow fruit-heavy stems.
Cold nights threaten fragile flora;
furred and feathered eat in autumn frenzy.
How many creatures, small and large,
creep and clamber the blue-spattered
granite outcroppings? I bend
to this moss-matted ledge,
senses alert to the coniferous gloom,
imagine the snap of twig,
swish of branch --
some shambling shape
come to claim its rights
to this banquet, imagine
shaggy Muskwa snuffling
and slurping through berries,
razor-edged claws, quick and sure,
stripping stems
with animate technology,
shovelling the blue treat mouthward,
driven by inner dictates
in its blueberry sating like an intruder
unexpectedly stumbled on a buffet.

But I am the intruder,
solitary human berry-gatherer
on this island in Theriau Lake;
there may or may not be
a blueberrying bear near.
All I have to do
is look around -- this sea
awash in a frosty blue glint
and I know only the meanest,
the leanest would begrudge me
my pail of fruit. The blueberry evidence
hides the white bottom of a plastic bucket.
My back bemoans
unwanted bending. Squatting is
no relief -- stretched muscles
squeal protests, kneeling
does not improve the body’s disposition.

I ignore my body’s petulance,
feed myself with blueberry visions:
baking fresh from the oven –
muffins and pies,
filling the kitchen
with sweet sub-arctic zing,
coniferous hint of Christmas.
I see fresh berries
like bleeding beads of indigo
folded in whipped cream,
supreme treat for berry-loving Norsks
and I have an image:
my west Norway cousin
in the ancestral farmhouse
spooning the last mouthfuls --
cloudberries and cream,
his face a TV ad for bliss.

Another blue handful.
The berries fall upon
the others with a sigh.
Just south of arctic tundra I am
throwback to my berry-loving forebears.
I thrum one handful on another
while southbound geese
arrow overhead, grainfields
mapped in their flight.