part one: the offering

i heard someone once say that they were "blackberrying with time." i am sure that this means spending a september afternoon, an afternoon spliced with crispness and thick with aged sunlight, trampling through blackberry brambles with a cotton dress and bare knees.

on this day, we blackberried with time and against it, racing against the half-light of evening and the fragility of the half-ripe jewels. the paradox of keeping our wanting hands full of the nearly-translucent gems, still warm with sunlight, while popping them into the open aperture of our waiting mouths.

blackberrying with time and against it, steeped in the collection of moments before this and aware that this moment, too, will soon become trapped in memory, too.