MULBERRIES Poem by Jan Wagner

so dusky and sweet was their juice that over
the stream the bats arced skyward, curvature
flush with the leaves, their deft, black scissors ready
to nip the ripest fruits and lift them away,
gorged on the wing. pale sun beyond jaffa -
and all of thinking, present, past, future,
as cramped as a glove compartment, tighter . . .
just say: mulberry, again: mulberry
so dusky and sweet
the very word in one's mouth - roused, eager,
now they are bent on swelling their number
with their racket of a thousand-wing shindy -
during the daylight hours suspended, heavy
in sleep, their clusters under your rafters,
so dusky and sweet.