berries

          We had come
A clearing where thousands of blueberry bushes grew.

          In the center,
         The packing house.
         A small, low building
         Open and screenless,
         Windows on all sides.

In front of it was a school bus
Marked:
"Farm Labor Transport"

The driver stood beside his bus.
A tall, amiable-looking man,
         Bare feet.
He wore green trousers and a T-shirt:

The end of the work day had come.

Pickers were swarming around a pump.
         Old women
         Middle-aged men
         A young girl          
A line was waiting to use an outhouse near the pump.
         
         Inside the packing house:
               Berries,
         Half-inch Thick,
         Rolling up a portable conveyor belt
         Into pint boxes.

Charlie's sister was packing the boxes.
Charlie's daughter-in-law was putting cellophane over them.
Charlie's son, Jim, was supervising the operation.

Charlie picked up a pint box:
In which berries were mounded high.

He told me with disgust that some supermarket chains knock off these
        Mounds of extra
           Berries
And put them in new boxes, getting 3 or 4 extra pints per tray.

At one window, pickers were turning in tickets,
Of various colors and were given cash in return
One picker (who appeared at least in his sixties)
Tapped Charlie on the arm,
Showed him a thick packet of tickets held together with a rubber band.
"I found these," the man said.
"They must have fallen out of your son's pocket."
He gave the packet to Charlie,
Who thanked him, and counted the tickets.

Charlie said, "These tickets are worth,
          Seventy-five Dollars."