oh in the hinterlands, shadowlands of poetry didn't you dream there was a train that ran from perfect land to perfect land and one of them, was blackberry station.
next stop. bright in the sunshine cooked in summer on the bush not even walking distance; just there when the doors close behind you, ready to pluck.
the doors close behind you, the closing bell rings.
you want to live at blackberry station forever and maybe
God takes notes for future reference building a case for you.
by handfuls it says and with no stomach ache later.
a house near the station, three steps away with lavender eaves. and whispering trees, a small sign painted by hand
this way, to Blackberry Station...
a dairy nearby that hand delivers cream.
mary angela douglas 5 september 2014
This poem came from a memory of always looking for apartments by the metro lines in D.C. when I lived there and never being able to afford them so in the poem I made up a place to live (even if only in Heaven, if only) where there are many mansions that had blackberry bushes near the train station.
When I was in a state of near homelessness, imminent eviction I imagined being able to survive by eating berries growing on the bushes near a train station and riding all day on scrounged money and sitting all day under flowering trees with the few books I could carry with me.
I was also influenced in part to write the poem by several episodes of the twilight zone, the ones most heavily laced with Rod Serling's nostalgia for the small N.Y. town he grew up in.
And of course, I also love blackberries to distraction.
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