On My Schoolboy Gooseberry Travels Poem by Mark Heathcote

I remember cutting myself on blackberry brambles
Trembling morning dews beneath crab apple blossoms
I remember swinging & spinning on the end of a rope
& jumping into the river where it twists & bends
I remember friends who I thought would always be?
But died like beehive colonies far too soon for me
Where did all those summer elations, delights go?
I remember we stole strawberries in a straw furrow?

Or tiptoeing in the cool waters of a creek, for a closer peek?
I remember crimson cheeks when girls looked at our feet
Cause I'm-told if they like you she really-likes-you
That's where her eyes would look you, once-over
& if she didn't, wasn't it like a blackberry bramble cut.
A graze that wouldn't heal until all the crab apples
Outside the school, gates were all trodden crushed up.
They're fate a squashed pulp never sweet enough again.