Here we go round the mulberry bush, intoned Bob.
As we made a wide arc around it.
Not wanting to squish the black juicy berries strewn about.
On Red Oak Drive.
Since moving here, we’ve passed by this tree almost daily.
Always avoiding the fallen fruits in June.
Its foliage towering, green umbrella from on high.
Maybe growing for the last hundred years.
But, not as old as the nursery tune Bob sang.
Each year dropping sweet, seedy berries.
For birds and squirrels.
A few assorted neighbors daring to eat them from the ground.
For the branches are unreachable, even on tiptoe.
So, collecting them, impossible.
Not easy like with a raspberry or blackberry bush.
Both low to the ground.
For some reason, the familiar children’s melody, forgotten.
Even as we marched day after day past the tree.
Till Bob teased my playful child spirit.
The one chanting the song in early childhood.
On the long bus rides to and from day camp.
Then later to her own children.
Never really taking time to meet a mulberry bush.
Till now in old age.
But, as long as I breathe,
there’s always a chance,
I’ll encounter a first time
by glad happenstance.
Lynn Benjamin
June 21, 2024
Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush is an English nursery rhyme and game from the mid nineteenth century.
