The Berry Behind the Brambles
Ackerman’s verses—rich in the landscapes of the Blue Ridge—bridge our generations, from a rickety shelf stacked with jelly jars to climate-anxious meadows.
Appalachian poetry Southern nature
KITCHEN EPIPHANY
The cabinets are painted white
over old pine, shelves that slip
at one corner, causing jelly jars
to skate toward the counter
in rainbow skirts. Still sturdy
enough to hold a five-pound sack
of flour for years, or cornmeal
gone to mealy bugs. Do you mind
them, my grandmother asked me
once, and I didn’t. Not much bother
enters the lemony light, its window
over the sink where a sprayer
works sometimes, or not. Always a rag,
pots taking a breather to soak,
time to pause and look
out where the propane tank sits,
a nest under its lid. For the longest
time, I’d watch that bird fly
in and out, spring riding its wings
like the shine of a spoon. Not knowing
it was a Carolina Wren, until one day, I did.
Appalachian poetry Southern nature
THE NORFOLK SOUTHERN
There’s a spot down the gravel road,
where the train curves close
enough to read painted logos, hear
its language I’ve forgotten
made of whippoorwills, the moon’s bright
stamp on a cloud. A random stand
of bloodwort watches too, tangled
at my ankles, dusted by the hot iron
chug where I see my sister and me,
eternally kids, grifting beside the tracks
for rocks. Granite or quartz prizes
in piles of gravel, maybe we play
a little chicken then, make the horn
blow its horsepower and diesel
our way. It’s good to have a place
so much yours you can die
there if you choose, pockets loaded
with secret stones. A man pauses
between boxes to wave, pony tail,
red kerchief in the wind,
where stacked platforms fly by
into a distance whose destination
I could look up—but maybe this once
I can let it go, not know the end.
Appalachian poetry Southern nature
A DRY SPELL IN JANUARY THEY SAY IS CLIMATE CHANGE
Not much to notice in the meadow—
mostly daisies panhandling
for water. Blackberries run right up
to you though, stretch their arms
praising the Lord from a dusty row.
It’s hard not to admire things
that survive, though you’ve cut briar,
shoveled roots when they’ve taken over.
A veteran of an old war once told me:
You’ll never know how close we came
to losing the whole shebang.
And though I may listen
at the portal of his story, there’ll be
no return to that time before the cloud,
before the world could destroy itself.
I like to think it’s innocence
I see in his eye, also a vine, endless runners,
a young man reaching
through brambles for a berry.
Sharon Perkins Ackerman is an Appalachian poet living in central Virginia. Her poems have appeared or forthcoming inSouthern Humanities Review, Atlanta Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Kestrel, Blue Mountain Review, and several others. Her poetry collections areRevised Light(Main Street Rag Publishers) andA Legacy of Birds (Kelsay Books, 2025). She is poetry editor forStreetlight Magazine.
