2026-02-16
37 分钟This is The Guardian.
by Rebecca Solnit, read by Laurel Lefkoe.
Gathering.
Summer after summer,
I used to descend into a creek that had carved a deep bed shaded by trees and lined with blackberry bushes.
whose long thorny canes arched down from the banks, dripping with sprays of fruit.
Down in that creek, I'd spend hours picking until I had a few gallons of berries,
until my hands and wrists were covered in scratches from the thorns and stained purple from the juice,
until the tranquility of that place had soaked into me.
The berries on a single spray Might range from green through shades of red to the darkness that gives the fruit its name.
Partly by sight and partly by touch,
I determined which berries were too hard and which too soft, picking only the ones in between,
while listening to birds and the hum of bees,
to the music of water flowing, noticing small jewel-like insects among the berries.
Dragon flies in the open air, water striders in the creek's calm stretches.
I went there for berries, but I also went there for the quiet, the calm,
the feeling of cool water on my feet,
and sometimes up to my knees as I waded in where the picking was good.
At home I made jars of jam.
When I gave them away, I was trying to give not just my jam,