She gathers raspberries

in white plastic pails

Under a hot August sun.

Violet stained fingers

swipe her sweating brow,

leaving four violet streaks across her brown face.

She sighs and stretches and thoughtfully ponders

the blue-fire sky.

“Looks like rain this afternoon,”

she says, chuckling

at the skeptical wrinkle in my forehead.

I stare at the cloudless sky,

shake my head

and laugh,

but hurry to fill my pail–

just in case.

Wisdom comes in many forms,

                and ignorance is as common as rain.

My umbrella is at home

and I hate being wet.

-Olivia Paton

(First published in Caesura, 1997)