In Blueberry Fields

1) We had come
     to a clearing
     where thousands
     of blueberry bushes grew.

     There was the packing house--
     a small building
     with open and screenless
     windows.

     "Farm Labor Transport"
     marked the bus
     out front.

     The driver stood
     beside his bus.
     He was tall and amiable,
     with bare feet.
     He wore green
     trousers and a T-shirt.

     The work day had come
     to an end.
     Swarming an old pump
     were old women,
     middle-aged men and a young girl.

     Inside the packing house,
     berries were rolling.
     up a conveyor belt
     into pint boxes.

     Packing boxes
     was Charlie's sister.
     His daughter-in-law
     was placing cellophane on them.
     And Jim, Charlie's son,
     was supervising.

     Charlie picked up a pint box
     where berries were mounded
     and told me,
     supermarket chains
     knocked off mounds
     of extra berries
     and put them in new boxes,
     getting three or four
     extra pints per twelve-box tray.

     At a window,
     pickers turned in tickets
     of various colors, where
     they were given cash.

     One picker,
     in his sixties, tapped Charlie
     on the arm
     and showed him a thick
     packet of tickets
     held together by a rubber band.

     "I found these,
     they must've fallen
     out of your son's pocket."
     He gave the packet
     to Charlie, who
     thanked him
     and counted the tickets.

     "These are worth
     seventy-five dollars,"
     Charlie said.

2) in a clearing
     where
     blueberries grew

     was a packing house
     with a bus out front

     the driver
     was tall and amiable
     with bare feet

     the work day had come
     to an end

     inside
     berries rolled
     up a conveyor
     into boxes

     a window,
     pickers turning
     in tickets
     for cash

     a picker
     tapped Charlie
     on the arm

     "I found these."

     Charlie thanked him
     and counted the tickets

     they are worth
     seventy-five dollars