So much goes with the Mulberry
The vestige of spring’s cool morns
echo mute trumpets of hungry doves
as dawn has an urgency, to feed.
Falling stains, they multiply into
an embarrassment of heavy branches;
Walking by, I stir a Mourning flight
as I too delight on sweetness.
So much goes with the Mulberry
a bare male, and heavy-boughed fem
A pair, and a page in a picture book filled
with purpled fingertips, tongue licked lips,
and sounds of we, true honeybees.
Wonder mends the fractured pause,
small birds land and peck, at mites
and tiny things barely seen, yet that also share
amidst this busy sign of June.
All who dare can savor the passing bounty
As seedlings in a season
yet to be
Fill the sagging limbs and so many as we
Sip the short sweetness of a shortened season
So much goes with the Mulberry
_______________________________________
The Mulberry is a tree common to the U.S., North America and Europe. It grows nearly everywhere in the U.S. and in late Spring it produces a large amount of sweet berries. The female tree bears fruit, the male is similar but does not fruit. There are White Mulberry trees, and Black Mulberry trees, many trees here ave both white and dark fruits. In my area, the doves in particular fatten on them. They eat and gorge themselves until it seems they will barely fly. Their bellies drag the ground in the height of the season.
The food chain is a cycle, and the Mulberry has an important role; it provides stuff for honeybees, then fruits for birds, insects, squirrels- so many City creatures, and people too. Mulberry trees need no care, they come back year after year bigger and more fruitful. In the city landscape they can take over an area, so many seeds and so many new trees and bushes springing up. Cut off the top and a small bush survives and bears fruit close to the ground.
As a child, Mulberries were part of a great cycles of seasons, they were among the first free candies we would get from Nature, later came blueberries, and as the summer went on, we got apples, pears and wild grapes. But because they were so sweet, and also because they were among the first. the mulberries were favorites.
_______________________________________
The Mulberry is a tree common to the U.S., North America and Europe. It grows nearly everywhere in the U.S. and in late Spring it produces a large amount of sweet berries. The female tree bears fruit, the male is similar but does not fruit. There are White Mulberry trees, and Black Mulberry trees, many trees here ave both white and dark fruits. In my area, the doves in particular fatten on them. They eat and gorge themselves until it seems they will barely fly. Their bellies drag the ground in the height of the season.
The food chain is a cycle, and the Mulberry has an important role; it provides stuff for honeybees, then fruits for birds, insects, squirrels- so many City creatures, and people too. Mulberry trees need no care, they come back year after year bigger and more fruitful. In the city landscape they can take over an area, so many seeds and so many new trees and bushes springing up. Cut off the top and a small bush survives and bears fruit close to the ground.
As a child, Mulberries were part of a great cycles of seasons, they were among the first free candies we would get from Nature, later came blueberries, and as the summer went on, we got apples, pears and wild grapes. But because they were so sweet, and also because they were among the first. the mulberries were favorites.
No comments:
Post a Comment