Dark berry border
menagerie of beaked joy
spoils my appetite;
but one conscience rests easy
in today’s fresh autumn air.
Every year I say I will go out and pick ripe blackberries and raspberries. Every year I might pick a couple on a stroll through the yard. 99+% go to the birds and that’s OK, even though some part of me wants those berries!
kigo: ripe berries, (re)fresh(ing), autumn air
tanka form
Colleen Chesebro is the host of TankaTuesday. She asks us to write syllabic poetry using seasonal kigo (season words.)
Tao Talk 
Love the phrasing in “menagerie of beaked joy”.🤩
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Melissa, I’ve never met a bird that didn’t like berries ;) Thanks.
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I miss those fresh berries☺️
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Someone, I understand store bought are nowhere near fresh picked when they are ripe.
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A delicious post.
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Thanks!
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Beautifully written Li! I love your sentiments about sharing the berries with the birds that enjoy most of your harvest.
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Suzette, I like to see the birds happy and stress-free. Thank you and glad the sentiments resonate with you.
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You are most kind, Lisa! Bless you!
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<3
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Bet those berries taste good! :D Great poem Lisa! :-)
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They do! Each one is a juicy nugget of flavor.
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Sharing delicious berries with fine-feathered friends is a nice gesture, Lisa. I think you deserve a few for yourself. Delightful poem, Lisa.
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Eugi, your kindness is appreciated. Maybe I’ll go out and nab a few tomorrow :)
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My pleasure, Lisa. 🫐
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Good poem Lisa and I love blackberries! We have some near Church that Jennifer and I pick during breaks. I need to find some near my house…I know we would have a patch of them somewhere.
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Max, thanks!
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Can you blame the menagerie of beaked ones feasting on such delights?
Before my aunt moved, I went up to her place and there is no way the birds could eat all the bounty (lucky for me!!) Sigh… I am bummed I can no longer pick raspberries at will…
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No, I can’t blame them. They enjoy the season just like us humans do, and the harvest. Have already seen apples fallen out of one of the trees. The deer will be coming close at dusk soon.
Nice that you used to have a spot like that. Most of the berries up along the fenceline are blackberries, but there are some raspberries out back.
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How can they not? And wow, already? Though it must be nice to have these visitors, even if they do eat peeps’ gardens and such.
Yes, it was delightful. So good!
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Dale, I can afford to take a Buddhist approach to my garden and the wild berries. Understandable others can’t. Thanks so much for reading and your comment.
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Most of us can, I should think. Not too many are counting on their garden to feed them throughout winter (not counting farmers, of course; I just mean the regular folk like us who get a kick out of a few tomato and zucchini plants :D)
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I know you have that marauding groundhog that steals your best tomatoes. That has got to be frustrating. Are your zucchini plants producing?? I’m disappointed in the purple reign tomatoes. I thought they were a dwarf variety (must have read a wrong review or just misread) and they are growing giant-sized but barely starting to ripen.
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That fat bastard… I got one tomato from that plant. I’m not planting Italian ones in the future (even he disses them). Not a single, solitary zucchini did I get. Beautiful flowers and zero veg. Can you imagine? I’ve never had that happen before. Hopefully the purple reign will be tastt?
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lol! I remember the day I wrote a poem about the cute little groundhog at the animal sanctuary (with photo) and how you reacted :) I wonder if it was too danged hot and dry for the zucchini? I hope not, as hot summers are going to be a thing from now on I’m guessing. I hope so on the PR. Will let you know.
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;-) I dunno. I watered regularly so there shouldn’t really be a reason. It has never happened to me before.
I have faith, your PR will be delish!
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Berry picking was one of my favorite activities as a child–the fields across the RR tracks were full of them. But I would leave them for the birds now too. (K)
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Glad you thought of those happy childhood memories. I don’t remember picking any as a kid except one time when my folks rented a cabin on Bear Lake and us kids went exploring and found berries. Now you’ve got me going back in time :)
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Happy memories I hope.
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Yes, it was the highlight of the vacay. I was a very obnoxious teenager. I don’t know how my mom and stepdad tolerated me lol
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Me too. I was awful to my mother. My father told me I could not live at home and go to college (one of my plans to save money)
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Gee, thanks, Dad!
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He was right though.
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Beaked joy! 🐦
Those berries are so luscious-looking!
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:) They’ve been having a heyday out there!
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I bet! They know where the good stuff is stashed! 😅
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Lovely take Li. Picking berries isn’t easy, unless you’re a bird 🦜
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Thanks, Sadje. No it isn’t, those thorns are no joke.
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Yes, I’ve seen them up close and know
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Beautiful one
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I love to watch the birds feasting on them… I have all good intentions of using them, if/when I pick them, but I don’t like cooking particularly, and I enjoy them most in a pie – apple and blackberry with custard! yum
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Ooh, apple and blackberry pie with custard sounds scrumptious!
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Delicious and delightful post! Fresh berries have their own charm.
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Balroop, thank you very much. Yes, they do!
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We are funny creatures, we always mean to but we mostly leave things too late 💜💜💜
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<3 well said, Willow
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but why do we do that 🤔 💜💜
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I love that you leave the berries for the birds, Lisa. The blue berries (Michigan grown, but store-bought) were the best I’ve ever had. I felt like I was royalty eating blueberries on my yogurt. LOL!
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Nice!
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Our strawberries disappeared, but the Mourning Doves are happy. Your beautiful poem brought a smile. 🌞
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Gwen, thanks much.
I wanted to let you know that recently most times I try to read your poems, my anti-virus program blocks me. I have tried going in through the feed and through the link and it does it either way. :(
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I had to save my berries for over three weeks to get almost a quart. And I did make some jam! And it is all gone now… Yum. :)
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:)
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…sent the seeds… 💗
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Awesome, Jules. Will be looking for them. I have collected quite a few from the cosmos. I also just finished month TWO of the POPO2024 (never again 2 groups!) and have some of my “colorings postcards” left and so will send you one of those with seeds AND using some of my fancy stamps :)
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:D
When I run out of my “fancy stamps” (A while yet I’m sure) I’m just going to have to ask my postal clearks for different denominations! They already think I’m a tad odd… ;)
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Cool, Jules. It is going to be awhile before I run out of mine :) I’ve tried to sign into the usps site where you can see and order any kind of stamp you want, but after multiple attempts over time, I’ve never been able to get into it so finally gave up.
Yours went out in the mail yesterday but they were already loading up the trucks early so it may be a few days later, but it should get to you in the coming week.
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Thanks in advance. No worries on the time line. I dislike when you can only get discounts on line… and refuse to sign up for excess crud in my inbox.
A big Corp will only do some photos online… I’ve never had luck with that. I’d rather go in and do my own cropping on the store machine – you can’t even get some of the photo products unless you go online because their local machines aren’t geared for them- dumb business move – I think. They should have all the same services – not everyone has computer access.
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Understand and agree. I would do it here at home if I had the right kind of printer. I can edit all my photos with no worries.
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A friend has a cell phone similar to mine… and can do all sorts of editing right there on the phone… I maybe able to do similar stuff. I wish I had a printed instruction guide!
I have another relative who has one of those expensive machines. I may employ him to make a poster for my grand their nephew. :)
That photo print paper can also get expensive. I generally just like my 4 x 6 or 5 x 7… occasionally an 8 x 10 will do. :)
I just figured out that if I have my phone in portrait mode I could take images of the caterpillers in their tubes! Most of them are in chrysalis :D
You can read about them on this page I created;
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With google photos it’s still in the experimental phase. I did see that some of the colorings need to be “enhanced” to show up right on the printed images, and several of them got cut off so need to figure out how to capture the whole image I want. 18c per print isn’t a bad price.
Just went to your butterfly page. Very cool!
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🐛🦋 :D
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