Blackberry Summer

I love finding little glens of wild blackberries. In the city, that's kind of hard, but miraculously, I found one. Picking the wonderful black diamonds inspired my little poem, the illustration, and this palette.

Blackberry Summer

Summer hangs lazily, like the sun,
Who uses a herd of cotton clouds
As fitfully tossed pillows.

Locusts sing of love and light rain;
Their serenade rattling the dry grass
In a syncopated rhythm.

Serene, dew-soaked mornings
Give way to baking days
Of languid birdsong and cracked earth.

Under a cathedral dome
Of wide sugar maple leaves,
The sweltering heat abates.

A treasure of garnet and obsidian
Hangs heavy on vines of jade,
With bloodstone thorns for armor.

With sweet, cool dawns,
And tart, sweltering afternoons,
July tastes like blackberries.