Doug McHargue's "Blackberry Nation" after Laura Crooks

Doug McHargue photographed at the July 13, 2019 tour of Alexander County Library and FOUND: The Art of Community exhibit curated by Miranda Burgin. The photograph that inspired her work was taken by library director, Laura Crooks.

BLACKBERRY NATION

by Doug McHargue

after One for Solitude by Laura Crooks

Blackberries in the foreground, they are wild,

ready to swallow the chair.

In the grocery, they lie fat and indolent,

anemic hothouse plastic.

At the river they grew all over

and I picked two gallons

in a morning, smaller but real

and wicked little tarts, lost.

Now my fog eyes think vines

are city skylines, blackberries

inching their way up concrete, steel,

crawling up from the river

where they were stepped on,

chainsawed, bulldozed,

a blackberry nation rising,

then fruit raining

into the river, Catawba running

with its secret pouring

into a front yard near you.