missing home thanks to emerson

I read a poem last night that caught my attention. In “early poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson” I read one of my favorites called “Berrying.”

“ ‘may be true what I had heard,
Earth’s a hallowing wilderness
Truculent with fraud and force,’
Said I, strolling through the pastures,
And along the riverside.
Caught among the blackberry vines,
Feeding on the Ethiops sweet,
Pleasant fancies overtook me:
I said, ‘With influence me preferred
Elect to dreams thus beautiful?’
The vines replied, ‘And didst thou deem
No wisdom to our berries went?’ “

This poem is so nostalgic to me. I remember as a kid walking with my dad down our dirt road to pick blackberries for my Bebee. As we would walk my dad would talk to me like a friend, or maybe like a dad friend. And he would tell me how to be a man. He told me to always pick flowers for ladies and to look out for snakes in the grass. He told me to say yes sir and to look at someone when they are talking to you. He taught me how to find a ripe blackberry and how to let one stay on the vine. And I remember these lessons.

I remember looking at the woods we walked in with wonder at the unknown inside them, and I remember the peace that overwhelmed this uneasiness knowing my dad was there walking with me. He knew the way. Since he knew the way I was free to enjoy the woods and the berries and the smells of pine trees. My imagination could roam around the bushes and listen to the bugs talk to each other like they usually did in my 8 yr old brain. Reading this poem tonight indeed, “pleasant fancies overtook me.”