Even in Florida, the latter part of August, brings changes in the sun's shadows and a bit of coolness in the evenings. This time of year I begin reflecting back on my childhood, in those few days before school started back. We tried to make the best of what play time we had left, by swimming in the creeks and creating our own fun. When you grow up in the country, in the mountains of North Carolina, you just know how to spend long summer days. We took walks, long walks on old dirt paths that had wild crab-apple trees, wild grapes and best of all, "blackberries." On occasion, we would hit the jackpot and pick enough berries for a cobbler. It took little coaxing to get my mother to make one of her prized cobblers, considering it was one of her favorite summer's end deserts.
When the blackberries hang swollen in the woods,
in the brambles nobody owns, I spend all day amoung the
high branches, reaching my ripped arms, thinking of nothing,
cramming the black honey of summer into my mouth;
All day my body accepts what it is. In the dark creeks that
run by there is this thick part of my life darting among
the black bells, the leaves; there is this happy tongue.
~Mary Oliver
