What the Blackberry Said...

Plants.

They've always drawn me in, entranced me.

The first plants I learned were fennel and lemonade berry. Walking along the road at seven-years-old, I recognized fennel's wispy leaves, and was all too happy to take a bite, heedless of exhaust and dog pee. Lemonade berry, a big, bushy Southern California plant, was resplendent with mouth puckering fruit at the right time of year. Lemonade berry and fennel were my childhood friends, one tart, one like licorice, treats in plain sight if you knew how to look.

My next love was blackberry, thick in the canyons, twining about itself, seductive berries plump and shining next to vicious thorns. I could pick for hours, and head home with blood prickling along my arms, victorious and wild. The joys of the harvest.

When I moved North, I met the trees. No easy food to share, they instead offered peace, beauty, and safety. I drank in their presence, danced among the red-gold rain of their autumn leaves, learned the scent of bay and pine, craned my neck to greet redwood, lost myself in oak branches. These were the guardians I'd lacked in the land of eternal summer. The landscape naked without these sentinels, forest nearly as mythical as unicorn.

Last summer, I spoke with a blackberry. A car barreled by, loud and unheeding. I flinched and apologized.

It happens all the time.

Darkness gathered around us, two beings locked into a moment. Thorns held me in place.

It was fine before you got here. Now, we can't breathe, the water is poisoned. 

but

WE'RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE.

The blackberry released me and, shaken, I stepped back. The plants had never spoken before. I had not expected anger.

Maybe it was just my own.