Cherry Picking
July 9th, 2024
The asphalt bends and separates underneath the weight of my tires and the July heat, as I roll around the curve. Rolling hills of farmland and family barns sprawl for miles, taking no frame, the only limit to their expanse is the sky. Blue with the golden haze of wheat dust and August’s slow approach. At the end of every generational driveway seems to sit a cherry tree. A leafy pompom with small reds. The faster I drive, the more trees I see.
My family had a defunct cherry tree on the side of one of my childhood homes. The fruit never seemed to fully ripen. The blossoms smelled sickeningly sweet, so syrupy there was no sweetness left for the actual cherries. Tart pink underbellies never turned crimson. I used to climb the low hanging branches, scraping my knees, grazing on the bitter bites, and scanning the floor of my neighbor’s driveway for fallen fruit. The cherries were never ready.
In Northern Michigan there’s a cherry season. Rows and rows of cherry trees reach for the mild sun, their bodies look like mistletoe, the cherries full and delectable with a hint of summer sugar and lake rain. I’ve never been, not during cherry season. But I can imagine the abundance. The trees’ need to be stripped bare, harvested, because even more fruit waits to stem. How! How is it possible that more fruit could possibly come? The Michiganders turn their pickings into jams, juices, and wines for the winter to come. But in the summer, the cherries come like they’ll never leave and make appearances at boat picnics, breakfast rituals, and night’s glass of bonfire whiskey on ice.
I would spend hours in the ribs of that pointless tree with the dumb wood-bumping bumble bees, spitting pits into the grass for my dog to sniff over. A sour belly and sticky fingers. I could see into my house’s kitchen window. My mother would usually be there kneading meatballs for dinner that night, cleaning up the morning’s mess, or feeding my ravenous brothers. I couldn’t be bothered. I was cherry picking.
When July rolls around, my mother stops the grocery cart by the cherries and without fail reminisces, “your Grandpa loved cherries.” Sometimes she says “my dad loved cherries,” and for some reason my stomach aches. Most times she’ll place them in the cart, other times she’ll move along to the deli section as if she said nothing, an accidental thought slip. The cherries usually rot, forgotten in the back of the fridge. I always picture my Grandpa eating his cherries. Metal dusted welder fingers popping a de-stemmed ruby into the pocket of his left cheek. One, two at a time. He’d talk with his mouth full, saying something I wish I could hear, something I wish my mother could hear. Cherry juice would leak onto his lips and sit maroon in between the thin crevice of his snaggletooth. His dark hair and leather outfits. His quick nature and eye over my mother. I wonder what he would’ve thought of me, who I love, and what I create. I wonder how he went about cherry picking, what stood out and what he passed by.
No matter my grocery list, I always grab a bag of cherries.
I’ve been having a slow summer. Slow around the bends, slow to wake, slow to speed up again. I’m weighing my life’s next steps and learning new things. I’m holding possibilities in my palms. I’m setting them down until one day when I’m strong enough to hold them. I’m back in Pennsylvania, where the hummingbirds landed and my mother tends to her garden after work. Where I watch the trees fill with June food and water, then exhale their energy into July, to flutter light and golden in the occaisonal breeze. I’ve struggled to slow down. A hard time bringing my thoughts down to the speed of my body. Morning swims and dusk walks. A full breakfast upon wake and ice cream at night. My body feels strong and nourished. I don’t know why my mind fights this rehabilitation and recourse. It’s all I’ve wanted for a long time.
It’s as if I’m laying on my back, the rainless grass itching at my calves and tanned shoulders, below a cherry tree. What little rain summer has given so far, was sucked up and infused into the bulbous cherries dangling above me. The elbow-to-elbow couplets move along to the sound of the passing day. Wind shifts, muffled hoove paths, and cardinal songs. I’m hungry, here on this woodland floor. I’m hungry for my thoughts and ideas. They’re all there, growing, hanging, falling in my mind. Ripe and in reach. My poems and practices are synonymous to cherry picking, I like to think. I can tell by their color, how long they hang, and their waxy luster if they are ready to be taken from the tree. I can tell if one’s pit is too big with little fruit to chew off. Or if a stem is too long, too rooted to its source. One day these cherries will be preserves, jarred and ready to be spread over cheese and toast. One day these cherries will be wine, full bodied and swallowed into full bellies of winter dinners. One day these cherries won’t exist. Eaten or fallen to the grass floor. Sweet and rotten seeping into the forest floor, and I love that.
While the summer sun wilts the tree tops and the needed thunder storms barrel in at night. While the bees hang low to the ground, and the deer wander open and fearless. While July turns into August and summer relaxes its shoulders. While I sit and shed my skin. While my time slows down to sit beside me and look at everything I’ve done and everything I could, I will slow down to meet myself. Meet myself below the cherry branch shadows of my abundant mind. Bitter or sweet, I’ll be happy just to have a taste. If you need me at my fastest, don’t. I won’t be bothered, I’ll be cherry picking.
