Wild Plums
The bushes grow halfway up
the sage and short grass bank
where we pulled over one hot day
and got out to stand by the pickup
with the long curve of the river
running below,
stand and pick the pink-orange fruit
hanging so thick we’d seen it
from the road and my father told me
to stop—some still sour and some
with a delicate sweetness beginning
to change the sour. We ate and made
a pile on the seat between us for mother
who couldn't leave the house any more.
He said in sixty years up and down
that road he'd never stopped, though
the bushes often bore a heavy crop.
Now I see them every year, driving alone,
but haven't stopped since that last day
he and I came out of the canyon
in level sun of August afternoon
and crossed the open valley home.
C. E. Greer
(Wind, Spring 2002)
