Not unfinished, exactly

Here is a little something in response to POetry Thursday's Monday prompt: unfinished conversation. It is less about an unfinished conversation, than about what I might say, had I the inclination or the nerve to say it to who it needs saying to.

Ah well. Hope it makes more sense than that last bit of nitwit nonsense. Has Alice in Wonderland taken over my mind? Hah!, laughs my family. You've been this way all the time!

Looking for Berries

Once, when I was looking for berries
red, hot, fat, pulling-the-stem-over berries,
I imagined a time
when I would no longer be looking
for berries, but looking back
on looking for berries.

Even at twelve
that long hot summer before I grew up
that long hot summer of books and laps around the island
even at twelve
or maybe because of twelve
I had a feeling
about life.

About life
and its big moments
and life
and life’s small moments.

A small girl on the cusp of big
I sensed
that hidden in small,
snuggled right up against small’s curved little backside,
somehow,
impossibly,
lay big.

In all the small moments
the strawberry whispered.
I got juice all up and down my ear
trying to hear.

Once, wisdom came while I was looking for berries.
Reached straight up out of dry crumbling dust
and sucked the sweet, pink breath right from me.

What is real
- this berry.
What is now
- this day
- this mother beside me
- that boy
- that shirt untucked
- this town
- this sky
- this sugar scented July
will not be forever.

The berry will be picked
after a fiery fall
a frozen, white time
and a struggling toward green
another will grow.

Another will grow
another will droop
another will scent the air
will defy the dust
will be eaten.

This is what I would say
if boys would listen
and strawberries could speak.