Yearning for blueberry muffins

Three blueberries sit on the branches,
a bit under-ripe.
I think about the best time to pick them
and wonder if we can go berrying tomorrow
but they won't be ready yet, and besides, they're
just the first ones to come out. Better to wait until
the sun has driven them past the edible point,
when their cousins have come out, and they
themselves have swollen to blue perfection,
then more, until they nearly split their skins
and then deflate like balloons with a tiny,
tiny hole near the tie.

Sometimes I think blueberries are filled
not with juice and plant flesh but rather
with sunlight, pure and unadulterated,
and if they go unchecked or unpicked
too long they look as if they'll surely burst.
The deflation is always a surprise, but
half the time the birds get them before
they can even get there. And even the
slightly-sour blueberries taste sweet;
I think it's all that concentrated sunshine
that pops out when cooked with sugar,
and coats everything around them.

Only, the first berries
always have to swell and wither
if you want most of the berries you
collect to be sweet and delicious. A
little wasted sunshine
is the price of summer-long sweetness.
Besides, it's hardly right to feast
until the bug spray can dissuade
the ticks from coming to feast, too.