Blackberry Epiphany – Michael Baldwin

Venturing fingers among the tangle
of blackberry thorn canes,
questing their dark elusive prize,
plucking each plump bundle, then
easing it from the labyrinth
of defending claws, I discover
one gleaming berry ridden by a petite
beetle, her flat, yellow shield
an extravagant contrast against
the obsidian fruit’s glistening bulb.

Michael Baldwin, is a native of Fort Worth, TX. A retired library administrator and professor of American Government, his poetry was featured on the national radio program The Romantic Hours, and has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He won the Violet Newton Single Poem Prize, 2000, the Eakin Award, 2011 for Scapes, and the Morris Chapbook Award, 2012, for Counting Backward From Infinity. His book of Texas poetry, Lone Star Heart (Lamar University Press, 2016), vied for the Texas Institute of Letters Poetry Book Award. His third poetry book, The Quantum Uncertainty of Love (Shanti Arts Press, 2019) received a Readers Favorite 5-Star Award. Mr. Baldwin resides in Benbrook, TX.

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