Blackberry Eating

 I love to go out in late September
among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries
to eat blackberries for breakfast,
the stalks very prickly, a penalty
they earn for knowing the black art
of blackberry-making; and as I stand among them
lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries
fall almost unbidden to my tongue,
as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words
like strengths or squinched,
many-lettered, one-syllabled lumps,
which I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well
in the silent, startled, icy, black language
of blackberry -- eating in late September. 

Blackberry eating while it literally outlines a story of someone eating blackberries on a September morning, the blackberries are also used as a metaphor for words, and also "Blackberry Making" as a metaphor for writing poetry. Maneuvering through the prickly branches the poet is able to take in the ripest berries, much as a poet shuffles through words until the right or "certain peculiar" words land on their tongue and flows to their pages. They use their words and imagery to create a sensory experience, of tastes (eating the blackberries), sounds (silent) textures and the sense of touch, (fat, icy, prickly squeeze, squinch) and emotions (startled) to convey a message.  In a big way this poem is all about simply that; poems and their crafting. I believe the reason the poet chose blackberries as a metaphor is because they can be experienced through all your senses, and while words can be spoken or heard they cant be held or tasted or smelled, so by using the blackberry metaphor he was able to make the intangible, tangible.