Lita's Poetry Challenge--Day Two--Mulberries

Sense Appeal

The beautiful mulberry, such a treat to the senses. They grow on a large-leafed bush in red, white, or pink, and ripen to a delicious sweetness that tastes good alone or in jelly or cobblers, and smell as delicious cooking as they do ripening in the sun. So innocent sounding. Mulberries to feed the birds and people, to please the eye and olfactory senses. The buds flower in the spring and ripen in the late summer time.

Maybe you remember the nursery rhyme:

Here we 'round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush. Here we go 'round the mulberry bush, on a frosty morning.

Beautiful! But are they always that innocent?

A Poem

Dark Red Lies

He remembered her well/ From childhood on/ The teasing, the games,/ Here we go 'round the mulberry bush/ He remembered her smile/ And innocent times/ That chance meeting years later/ That same teasing smile/ Now evolved from palest pink/ To deepest Mulberry/ Red-black sensuality/ How could he not fall in love/ With that mulberry smile/ That innocent femininity/ Heart as pure as/ Mulberry white/ Two years, one child/ A happy life he thought/ And then the discovery/ Of her unfaithfulness/ The real woman uncovered

A heart shattered suddenly/ By mulberry lips/ Telling mulberry lies/ Sting of a bee/ Quick and deep/ He hasn't seen them/ Mother or child/ In more than a dozen years/ But in his yard/ Like a blood-stained cinder/ Grows an innocent bush/ Mulberry reminder

Karen Chaffee 2009

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Here We Go 'Round The Mulberry Bush

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