by Wendell Berry
The cherries turn ripe, ripe,
and the birds come: red-headed
and red-bellied woodpeckers,
blue jays, cedar waxwings,
robins -- beautiful, hungry, wild
in our domestic tree. I pick
with the birds, gathering the red
cherries alight among the dark
leaves, my hands so sticky
with juice the fruit will hardly
drop from them into the pail.
The birds pick as I pick, all
of us delighted in the weighty heights
--- the fruit red ripe, the green leaves,
the blue sky and white clouds,
all tending to flight -- making
the most of this sweetness against
the time when there will be none.
And you are to me, my love,
as a tree of ripe cherries,
and I am a wild bird high
in your branches, hungry, ready to fly!
from This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems by Wendell Berry
Counterpoint Press, 2013
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