Fruits of Memory

Hand after hand reaches into a pot of strawberries
it’s impossible to resist
and soon they are all gone
but their taste lingers on and on
forever,
and I can’t even remember what else we learnt at that youth weekend
except that community is sharing the fruits
of labour.

Foraging brothers find blackberries, peaches,
banana passionfruit, sometimes I am with them
sometimes I am not following
because they have a way of crossing into
yards we are not supposed to
their hungry stomachs make it
hard to resist.

Returning after many years to my childhood home
I make trips to tourist fruit pick
with my children – who have been growing up
on mangos and paw paws
now for a brief time
they are in a place where raspberries, blackberries
and strawberries like to grow.

(c) June Perkins

Now I am exploring more about landscapes of fruit, and fields…. I…