August Day by Cascara

alias: Frangula purshiana, Rhamnus purshiana, Cascara sagrada, Sacred bark

Before Morning extends her fingers to warm my lowest trunk, down where grasses tickle, I’ve already lifted my summer-leathered leaves to the song of her.

The song of Morning spoken by all the winged ones: Robins, Wrens, Sparrows, and eager Bees. Voiced even from below, where Earthworms collaborate with Winds to dance the Grasses that tickle and wake me. Me, wide-branched, I lift my deep-veined leaves in a curtsy to the beginning of a new Day.

Higher and higher over my shading dome of green the Sun climbs, and I climb to meet it, reaching, feasting on radiance. Until, well, until it just becomes too much. Too much heat pulling at my watery insides. I lower my leaves, close my pores. My clothing of moist Lichen and Moss contracts.

And, it’s not until then, yes, in the heat of the Day, that my Berries call out their own radiance, mirroring the Sun.

My Berries aren’t at all shy of the shine.

All my sap, all my love, flows to plump and gloss my black fruits so that they reflect the August sun into the eye of every bird in the neighborhood, calling them to my side. Come: Cedar Waxwings, Northern Flickers, Band-tailed Pigeons, Robins, and Grosbeaks! Come!

They arrive! And, we dialogue. We talk in color: my black berry gleams to the smooth buff of Cedar Waxwing’s breast; and in touch: a tug on my slender pedicel as berry gives way to beak; and in taste: for sweetness fuels bird song; and yes in song, too– a cacophony of berry-eaters!

I even lure the little insect-eating songbirds with my fruits—their second favorite food. They linger long, for my branches host Beetles, Spiders, Flies, and Caterpillars. I accessorize so, to set a complete feast for all.

Like Orange-Crowned Warbler, thrashing around in neighbor Hawthorn’s branches. He saw/heard/smelled my bright Berry call. Flashing his petite, orange crown, he swoops over a seated human in a zippy little arc that I quite admire. (The lady caught the show, too—a gasp like limbfall).

The way Warbler enters the crisscross of my crown, olive-green wings rapid-lifting, makes me shiver with joy. Sealed in a bite, in a beak, in a burst of berry, we marry.

I become Warbler and he becomes Cascara, winging my seeds away.

Perhaps to sprout, and grow, and to shade, your very garden.