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This poem is taken from PN Review 18, Volume 7 Number 4, March - April 1981.

Three Poems A. V. Simcock
The Bilberry Pickers

Lammas Day on Black Bank Wood:
the stooped people, picking the blue,

and the wind, blooming across the heather.
A terrifying ceaseless hush

showers the bowing pilgrims who
gather beneath the aerials,

their fingers bleeding. I look back
aching to the hill's edge:

mist lying below, and the sun
full, gliding towards Sandbach.

It is not for the towering silver
we reapers bend, nor for the breeze,

but for the firmament of purple black
spheres, that contain the sunset.

Penmaenmawr
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