Blackcurrants.

BLACKCURRANTS

   walking to the Farmers' market
   was like dawdling two miles to school
   when we were small
   the sun singing lightly over the road and grass
   our talk jumping from bikes to blue scabious
   plucking rosehips and wild olives
   a bull screams in a field you laugh when I run

   we buy blackcurrant pie
   filling blue and bleeding into pastry
   triggering memories of hiding in
   sharp-smelling leaves, a cross between
   tomato and mint but dryer, crisp
   suck skin and flesh off the seeds
   mouths shivering at the sudden acid rush

   we're safe here in the cubby
   a tangle of elder, currants, and beech
   knees drawn up to chests
   giggling in the greenery
   whispering among tangled saplings
   thinking ourselves unseen
   savouring sour little parcels of life

   come home from school one day
   to find the cubby razed
   Grandfather stripped to his aertex vest
   white underarm hair sprouting to the rhythm
   of his hand-scythe's clearing sweeps
   as he eradicates our sanctuary
   out in the open we grow apart
   each going where we have to be
   tasting what we find along the way

   being with you this day
   is an interlude, coming home
   with gathered food and flowers
   to find that the secret place
   has been swept away
   a cleared space ready
   for what comes next