Children of the Brambles

Thorny limbs snatch at naked skin
on the twilit forest path; glancing
right and left, we seek knots of berries,
black and shiny as jet, following
brimstone and comma butterflies
that drift like graceful ballet dancers
arrayed in spectacular sunset hues.

We dodge wasps weaving among spurs
and landing on fruit that bursts with juice;
pick flies and spiders from the clusters,
brush cobwebs from our sticky fingers,
wipe juice from smeared chins, unaware
of inquisitive faces that peer and stare
from the shadows of a denser brier.

They are the bramble children, ghosts
of berry pickers of past years, the lost,
the ones who disappeared,
the souls who succumbed to starvation,
left to struggle with deprivation,
who perished in the winter cold,
who never knew love, never grew old.

Kim M. Russell, 17th April 2025

It’s Thursday and, at the dVerse Poets Pub, we are meeting the bar with Grace, who starts her prompt by reminding us that we can use magical realism in our poetry as part of our creative toolbox, to blend the ordinary with the extraordinary and place magical or fantastical elements into a realistic setting while treating them as natural, unquestioned parts of the world. She says that this technique “allows poets to explore deep emotional truths, cultural identity, and personal transformation through imaginative yet grounded imagery”.

She lists ways in which can use magical realism, with key elements to incorporate in our poems, a brief history of magical realism in literature, as well as an example of a poem:  ‘The Lime Orchard Woman’ by Alberto Ríos.

Our challenge is to infuse our poetry with a sense of magical realism. 

23 thoughts on “Children of the Brambles”

  1. I was admiring the sensory delights of berries and scenery of butterflies like ballet dancers, when the last stanza steered this into another direction. The bramble children description had me riveted until the end. Love the magical storytelling Kim.

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