Blackberries

A Poem by James

I remember picking blackberries in the hot July sun;
every morning down by the railroad tracks,
along an old barbed wire fence. Silver strands
and rusty barbs, it ran for miles as if chasing the tracks.
and in places, the fence was grown over with briars
and vines woven through the strands like a fine rug,
but thick with green leaves and sharp pointy thorns.
If you stand in the middle of tracks on a cloudy day
they form a giant tunnel that goes forever in the distance.
You can see the long train burst through, it's smoke
lost in the low grey clouds.
We would lay along the fence beside the tracks and feel
the earth shake as a mile of coal cars came screaming by.
I can still hear the train whistle blowing
and the rumbling sound of a million tons of steel speeding by.
When its past we would work along the fence,
filling our buckets with berries,
eating only the juiciest and fattest ones,
the rest were for mothers jellies and maybe a cobbler
if she had time.
The fence is still there and the train still comes
but I wonder, were have the blackberries all gone?