Construct Cup V 2.0

Doing the Strawberry Jam

Theme: How to... 
Words to use: (None)
Words to avoid: cook, build, write, stories, poems. 
Additional Parameters: Min. 16 lines





Doing the Strawberry Jam



Take yourself for a wander to pick-your-own fields
with an old floppy hat to ward off the sun, and bring
along a grandchild or two. Sun-kissed smiles,
red hands and stained knees later, rub
your aching back as you haul ten quarts
to the wagon, hoist up the grand-kid who's too small
to climb in herself and enjoy
singing your way back to the barn.

It'll be a hull of a few hours after you get home;
so many berries and little mouths
still begging for another one, please.
Bowls full, blenders fuller. Sweetened with giggles,
several pounds of sugar, the pectin and tiny finger lickings.
Pour into jars and jars and still, more jars. The grand-kids
get the important job: putting on all the lids.
Put twenty-eight various sized jars into the freezer.
Choruses of "How much longer, Grampa?"
after only fifteen minutes.
He sidetracks them to wash very red strawberry-grins,
impossibly pink hands before noticing their clothes. Shaking head ruefully,
giving up and heading outside: the three of them 
looking for all the world like
circus clowns on a sweetness high. He hoses
the grand-kids down, lets 'em drip and run-spin-dry in the sun.

Having no taste for strawberries, myself, I clean up
the bowls, spoons and dishes,
as Grampa crawls into the hammock with the two little ones.
Gentle swinging soothes and all three are asleep
under the boughs of the giant maple tree. I smile,
watching them. Magical afternoon.


I throw my new dishtowels into the wash:
scarlet handwipe flowers staining white-- three
distinct sizes of handprints.
I beat off the ants stampeding sugar scattered on the floor,
then go take a picture of my sleeping crew
sprawled in the hammock,
snuggled in a heap, covered in maple leaf shadows.

No strawberry was ever so sweet.




Fyn