C.P. Snow’s Two Cultures and Picking Blackberries

by Joseph Geskey

C.P. Snow’s Two Cultures

Imagine the cognitive dissonance

of an organic chemist

who loves reading great literature

but must faithfully document

the biography of our lives in language

that eschews embellishment or emotion,

where schoolroom posters

of the periodic table

served as a stern grammarian

whenever he wanted

to deviate from convention,

now driving through

his old childhood neighborhood

noting decades of neglect

in the thick coats of rust

accumulated on steel chains

of abandoned bicycles

where iron, oxygen, and water

have become comfortable over decades.

He wants to stop his car

and pen an ode

to the wonders of catabolism,

the breaking down of glucose

to release usable energy for cells,

when he sees two widowers

conversing on a paint-peeling porch,

catching up on their families’ news

of bonds broken and bonds formed,

these equations of serendipity

among the narratives of our waning.

Picking Blackberries

More than a half-century ago,

a few years after Seamus Heaney

wrote about blackberry picking,

I followed my grandmother

in late summer to source blackberries

for her homemade pies.

Reaching deep into the brambles

and moving her fingers

over the abundant clusters on display

Like a discerning shopper touching fabric

On a clothes rack, most went unpicked,

but I would indiscriminately gather

whatever I could that would satiate

a thirst of ounces rather than a dram

from the different bushes on display.

My incisors punctured the fruit-skinned

barrels as the juice trickled over

over my tongue before swallowing

the empty skins. My grandmother

would pour some from the ones

she picked into the basket of my hands

and I was on my way to learning

how to become a blackberry sommelier,

filling a summer day without spending

a single dollar. But that day allowed me

to define what rich means to my daughter.

There is updated science news to report Seamus.

We now know that sweet receptors

are not just located on the tip of the tongue

but throughout the mouth.

How much pain and suffering

could we have avoided if we knew

geographic boundaries of joy are not fixed