Even though for 27 years I had no idea what this plant was called, it has held a special place in my memory. Every fall I see it, a weed as tall as a bush, the stems an impossibly bright fuchsia, with clusters of deep purple berries almost like grapes. I see it, and it takes me back to October of 1988.
I was a freshman at college. I commuted, and the school had thoughtfully provided a home away from home for those of us who needed a kitchen or a couch during the sometimes long hours between classes and other activities. This weed grew in a field, along the path that led to the commuter house. The berries reminded me of a line from Keats, “to burst joy’s grape against his palate fine.” Barely 18, I was full of poetry and longing.
A young Romantic, ready to burst joy’s grape and taste its exotic flavors. Strung tight like Coleridge’s Aeolian harp, ready to vibrate at the touch of a breeze. The breeze being the “Wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being” (Shelley). October nights I’d stride open-coated into the wind, to feel it whipping my inner flames higher, ferociously alive. Those felt like Dickinson’s “Wild Nights”—“were I with thee, wild nights would be our luxury.” Only I had no thee; those wild nights were between me and the wind and the moon.
I felt like the Autumn of Keats’ Ode, “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” –misty and ripe. Autumn which conspires with the sun to “fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd and plump the hazel shells …” Keenly receptive to the sensuality of the season, I felt that fullness, ready to burst. In my own poetry, I was a “tidal wave, boxed.”
It wasn’t just sensual curiosity, and the readiness to be in love. At that age, one is so unformed, one’s future completely undefined. What will I be? Where will I live? Who will I marry? Will I have kids? All is potential. I longed for my own life but it was as yet only an infinite blank waiting to be filled in.
Of course by now all of those questions have been answered, and life holds much less mystery. But whenever I see the plant that I now know bears the decidedly un-poetic name of pokeweed, I am brought back to that moment of being 18 and full of yearning.
I also now know that the crimson juice of the pokeweed berry is toxic to the point of lethality. But it is also called “inkberry” implying that it could be used for writing. A plant of death and creation. Nature is where I find the mysteries of life now, our interactions less dramatic but just as intense. The close observation of even the commonest weeds, insects, or birds offers an opportunity to notice and unravel the small workings of life. A quiet pleasure.