Highbush Cranberry

The first time, 

you were checking out naked bushes near the trail 

like they were the most interesting thing you’d seen your entire life.

I was bushed, 

just moved back to town from that cabin in West Dawson

in that shitty, muddy, brown time after the snow melts before the leaves come out.

A shared house with hot running water and 

every little thing blowing my mind,

flush toilets and cappuccino to go.

I thought you looked weird 

in your long skirt and rubber boots and plaid jacket ripped in the sleeve,

and mysterious, scrutinizing shrubbery,

your runty dog acting pissy tough with my mastiff mutt

who tolerated the verbal volley.

Part of me wanted to keep walking.

Part of me didn’t.

You went first. Hi. 

Hi.

He’s part Tahltan bear dog, you said about your dog.

Everybody in the Yukon with a puny dog says that. I didn’t say that. 

I asked, what are you looking at?

Found some berries.

You’re kidding.

The highbush cranberry here. I found two berries from last fall. I love that, you said. 

I said, okay, wow. Thinking, someone’s really into berries.

They hung out here all winter long and they’re still such a deep red, you said. Sanguine.

I said sang-what? 

Sanguine. Blood-red. 

I didn’t know yet that you painted.

You said, how crazy is that? I walk here every day and I missed them. Two fat cranberries.

I’ve lived up here ten years and hardly gave highbush cranberries a second thought before.

You gushed about them like they were the most incredible discovery on earth,

your face almost as rosy-bright as those berries.

Look, you commanded.

I did. You were hard to refuse. 

Those berries hung wet and glistening from the bare branch.

I said, it’s like ruby treasure.

Exactly, you said, 

even more excited than I previously thought possible.

I’m not going to pick these two cerise sweetie-pies, you said. Even though I want to. 

I never heard anyone call a berry a cerise sweetie-pie. 

And I noticed your hands, the colours under your nails.

You talked to the berries like they were little souls. Save you two for the birds. 

The birds like them? I asked.

Oh yeah, robins, waxwings. Grouse. ’Specially after they freeze and thaw. Birds’ll eat ’em after the sweeter berries run out. Sour as all hell.

I believed you.

After that we kept bumping into each other,

your runt and my mastiff on the same pee schedule or

you and me on the same highbush cranberry schedule and,

even with my shift work at the shelter,

maybe I was walking my old mutt more.

Soon

you pointed out highbush cranberry leaves 

unfolding crinkled rusty-red

Most leaves come out spring green, you said. Cadmium green. Spring green is sweet optimism. But these ones, burnt red, come out on fire.

I said, they’re sort of shaped like the maple leaves where I grew up.

Watch the leaves open up, you said. Every day they change.

I never noticed leaves like that. 

What I mean is, I know leaves change

but I didn’t know,

not like that,

not like you.

Before I knew it, you showed me

clusters of tiny white flowers opening.

You told me they were June snow angels.

The flowers are flat, you said. Five perfect petals on each. 

My eyes aren’t that good. I believed you.

Smell them, you commanded, bossy.

I obeyed. You know I could never refuse you

even then.

You waited. Well?

I don’t know. I like it but it’s not perfume-sweet.

Yeah, and? 

Tangy? 

You pressed me. Keep going.

Reminds me, not the same but like pear blossoms, sort of stinky, from our garden when I was a kid down south.

Pungent, eh? Earthy. You nodded and stuck your nose into another cluster. Mmm, just love it.

Your house was by the south end of the trail.

The first time

after the flowers,

the first time in your backyard,

I’m standing in the middle of an art exhibit,

willow people arching, stretching,

gleaming birds in wood, in metal, hanging, jangling, 

a sweeping mural fence vista with rainbow mountains alive like creatures.

Even your log stump seats artistically placed like some pagan circle for chrissakes.

You whipped up a fire like you did it in your sleep,

made me camp coffee on your backyard grill,

tippy over the firepit’s river rocks.

Fuck, that coffee was strong and bitter

and full of grounds,

a splash of rye, or two.

This is my legal vice. You winked.

You have others?

You laughed.

You kept me up late

with your coffee

and your colours,

paint and otherwise.

I believed you. About everything. 

Did I say that?

The leaves start turning by goddamn August here, I complained.

Rufescent, you said, tinged with red.

I was getting used to your words I had no clue about.

By September the leaves are blazing you said. By October they’re gone.

You, always teaching.

One thing about highbush cranberry leaves is they hold so many colours, you said,

forest to cinnabar to merlot.

Like your face, I teased. Sort of teased.

Your face turned red when you cared about something.

You would never say red. You would say carmine or alizarin or vermilion.

Anyway, you swatted me.

Another thing, 

you could tell where highbush cranberry grew

just by smelling.

I mean you knew every bush on the trail, actually,

but if you didn’t, hypothetically,

you could close your eyes and sniff them out.

Earthy, you said. Tangy like the berry. Follow your nose.

You stood behind me,

your warm hands on my eyes,

making me sniff out berry bushes off the trail.

I could never refuse you. Did I say that?

I really hoped no one was watching as I tripped on a root and scraped my hand,

a single drop of blood.

You laughed and called me poor baby and still made me smell-find.

I never noticed that scent before,

sharp and tangy like the berry.

I’ll never forget it.

You picked two fat fall berries and held them in your palm like an offering.

I’m not religious like church

but if I was, I imagine it would feel like that

and maybe I would go to church,

this church, you.

I took the sanguine berry from you gently with my fingers,

your eyes watching all sombre like I better not squish this,

make it bleed,

too soon.

With our thumbs and pointer fingers

we put them in each other’s mouths,

sucking the sharp sourness.

My tongue caressed the flat pit and spit it out.

We did it again.

In the winter, 

you told me, it used to be colder here.

One of the fewer days in the minus thirties,

after the ice fog lifted,

we admired berry clusters,

the hoary-frosted main attraction again,

your eyelashes fairy icing.

You said, you know it’s not a real cranberry?

I said, you’re kidding. 

I said, how long were you gonna keep that from me?

You laughed your inside of the earth laugh that reached to the core.

This long.

Then what is it?

It is what it is. A highbush cranberry.

Spring breakup, such a Yukon cliché.

Your dog died of cancer.

You got down about the world.

I fooled around.

I said I could never refuse you.

I didn’t say, I could never betray you.

I said sorry but it wasn’t the same.

We remained friends.

That was pretty okay

but it wasn’t the same.

The virus came and

you were one of the few younger ones

who took it serious.

You didn’t want to see me too close

on account of your mom

and her breathing thing,

what did you call it? COPD,

her breath hard to grab and catch.

I didn’t take it personal,

well maybe a little.

I deserved it.

The last time we walked,

two cranberry bushes apart 

where we could,

or single file, mostly,

it was different.

You were different.

You weren’t spoiling my old mutt with treats. 

For the first time,

you seemed sad around him.

For the first time,

the highbush cranberry leaves,

ruddy-red and greening up,

didn’t make your face blush.

Come to think of it,

you never mentioned a single colour.

And I should have…

I should have…

yeah.

As clusters of waxy green berries ripened and fattened,

slowly, to yellow before peach before blood,

this cold, wet, viral summer,

I don’t think you meant it to happen.

Missing your dog,

worried about your mom

in that care home,

not being able to visit her inside,

I like to think you needed comfort,

your non-legal vice

when you weren’t feeling sanguine.

I had to look that up.

It can also mean cheery, confident,

optimistic.

I like to think you went to sleep.

I like to think you were not alone.

I like to think you were on the Ninth Avenue Trail

visiting your leaves and berries

with your dog.

Too soon.

And still I ask,

what if I had been there?

what if I had dropped by to say,

let’s check out the highbush cranberries,

see what they’re up to?

Teach me something else about them.

I’ll believe you.

END