After Seamus Heaney’s Blackberry Picking

Mid-July, given heavy rain and sun
for a full week, the blackberry wit would call.
At first, just one, a glossy brown bottle
passed others, stout, pilz, IPAs quite a lot.
You drank that first one and its undertone wasn’t too sweet,
unlike thickened wine: which brewer’s blood was in it?
No taste remains upon the tongue and it lusts for
more. The better ones passed up and that hunger
sent us out for milk-stouts, saisons, wits with bite
that brewers crafted and wet grass bleached our boots.
Small head, golden color and barely a fruit-tinged nose
we drank and drank until the bottle was empty,
until its tinkling bottom had been uncovered
to little bubbles, and in the fridge another bottle waited
like a bored soldier. Our noses weren’t peppered
with blackberry, nor pleased with this wit-non/wit.
We craved more berries in the mouth.
And when the tasting was done we thought it bland,
A sub-par brew, cluttering our cache.
Slightly warm, the brew was blah too. Out of the fridge
the fruit still vaporous, the wit no more bold.
I almost felt like crying. It wasn’t fair
that this the lovely idea couldn’t decide what it was.
With each wit I hope Sam Adams succeeds, I’m concerned they will not.