A Late Summer Morning

The sky a brilliant, breathy blue with
wisps of feathery clouds, I walk through
cool morning air filled with the scent of Blackberries.
Fat and juicy, they hang heavily from thorny vines,
smelling of sweet lusciousness,
promises of heaven.
But I know better than to reach for one;
the sharp memory of pain keeps my hand still.
Too many times, eager to taste the ripe sweetness,
I have imbedded
a tiny barb in my finger.
Grasses rise tall, waving their heavy heads
of glorious tresses, their seeds,
ready to scatter and carry forth the next generation.
A squirrel watches as my dog and I pass.
Charlie does not see it.
Movement is easy to detect; stillness not so.
It is the day after my 58th birthday.
Perhaps my life, too, is reaching late summer.
Perhaps it is time to put forth the fruit of my life,
to pass along, for any who care, the seeds sown in my heart.