Blackberries for Amelia

Blackberries for Amelia

Richard Wilbur

Fringing the woods, the stone walls, and the lanes,

Old thickets everywhere have come alive,
Their new leaves reaching out in fans of five
From tangles overarched by this year's canes.

They have their flowers, too, it being June,
And here or there in brambled dark-and-light
Are small, five-petalled blooms of chalky white,
As random-clustered and as loosely strewn

As the far stars, of which we are now told
That ever faster do they bolt away,
And that a night may come in which, some say,
We shall have only blackness to behold.

I have no time for any change so great,
But I shall see the August weather spur
Berries to ripen where the flowers were --
Dark berries, savage-sweet and worth the wait --

And there will come the moment to be quick
And save some from the birds,and I shall need
Two pails, old clothes in which to stain and bleed,
And a grandchild to talk with while we pick.
 
     This poem has a very specific rhyme scheme of ABBA.  Every stanza follows this pattern and there are five stanzas with four lines each.
     In the first two stanzas, Wilbur is describing the blackberry bushes.  The first line is referring to them looking in different places for the blackberries.  The second through fourth lines are saying how the bushes are becoming alive and new again.  The second stanza, Wilbur is describing the flowers of the blackberry bushes. I wasn't sure what a blackberry bush looked like, so I found a picture of one and it makes the second stanza make a lot more sense.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The third stanza is where it gets a deeper meaning.  He is now talking about the stars and how someday, they might disappear.  I did a little background research on the poem, and Wilbur wrote it about his granddaughter because they picked blackberries together.  Wilbur compares the flowers to the stars in lines 8 and 9.  When he is talking about the stars disappearing, part of that is also the flowers disappearing.  I took this as someday he won't pick blackberries with his granddaughter anymore.  In the fourth stanza, Wilbur is talking about change.  Line 13 says, "I have no time for any change so great". I think he is saying he doesn't want to waste his time worrying about what could happen.  In lines 14 through 16, he's talking about how over time, the bushes change.  The flowers disappeared, but blackberries came in their place.  He is talking about how even though things changed, they changed for the better.  The last stanza is saying to live life in the moment and enjoy it to the fullest with the people you care most about. 
     I like this poem because I believe in what Wilbur was saying.  Life is better fulfilled when you aren't always worrying about the future, but instead, enjoying it in the moment.