The Depth of Flavor

Summer grass brushes against the soles of my sneakers. To my left and right,
evenly spaced blackberry rows spread like outstretched wings—floricanes pruned, lateral branches trimmed, primocanes nurtured. Trellised brambles, slowed by a cold Midwest spring and too much rain, have pushed upward. Past the threat of the spotted wing drosophila, the berries cluster, dozens of drupelets surround oblong cores—crimsons, burgundies, magentas, imperial purples and purpled blacks, a mixture of ripe and ripening.

I am there to pick blackberries with the farmer—Kansas born and raised,
hair the color of corten steel squashed beneath his hat. He says to pick
only the best and shows me what he considers perfection. Each drupelet inflated, the berry easily slips off its stem. Yes, each berry black, the color of its name, but polished with a luster that comes from within. I place one in my mouth. Soft, it weighs nothing. But the familiar taste, tart and sweet, still takes hold.

Melancholy washes over me. Burnt caramel, laundry piled on the floor, unwritten thank you notes. Crouched over my sneakers, the last in kindergarten to learn to tie my shoes. And no more time with my father: fried catfish sandwiches, a dozengold margarine tubs ready to be filled with his holiday pâté, an iced Tom Collins, whole wheat bread rising in unglazed terracotta pans, one of his omelets—creamy center, the outside set but not browned— and the evenings he’d carve a chicken, scrape the wishbone clean and hang it over the silver dial of the oven clock to dry.

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