Blackberries for Amelia Fringing the woods, the stone walls, and the lanes, Old thickets everywhere have come alive, Their new leaves reaching out in fans of five From tangles overarched by this year's canes. They have their flowers too, it being June, And here or there in brambled dark-and-light Are small, five-petaled blooms of chalky white, As random-clustered and as loosely strewn As the far stars, of which we now are told That ever faster do they bolt away, And that a night may come in which, some say, We shall have only blackness to behold. But I shall see the August weather spur Berries to ripen where the flowers were-- Dark berries, savage-sweet and worth the wait-- And there will come the moment to be quick And save some from the birds, and I shall need Two pails, old clothes in which to stain and bleed, And a grandchild to talk with while we pick.