Blueberry Time

It's blueberry time on the pasture hills
Across mossy hummocks, where birds dip low.
Here, bright summer sunshine its warm gold spills
On dusty thistles, where steeplebush grows.

On a midsummer day, climb pasture bars,
Follow the cow path past great mullein spires,
Or wade through the daisies like fallen stars,
And then circle the milkweeds' tall spiked fires.

Here where the berries hang blue, sweet, and lush,
We pick them and drop them into our pails --
Huge clusters dangle from each swelling bush;
Ripe fruit falls on tin like a storm of hail.

Summer day here on the green pasture slopes
Where happily pass the long golden hours --
Old straw hats and a few hundred hopes,
With joy intermingled in leafy bowers;

Of muffins and jam and blueberry pies,
Fragrant and brown with rich juices oozing;
Fritters, flummery, some sweet surprise --
These are the blueberries for first choosing.

Laughter and sunshine, pails brimming over,
And back down the hill at the day's calm wane,
We stagger home through the crimson clover,
Lips telling tales with their blueberry stain.

~ Ruth B. Field