Poetry Skills Exercise:

Pine Barrens:
Version 1

The Pine Barrens once had their own particular witch.

Pineys put salt over their doors

to discourage visits from the Witch of the Pines,

Peggy Clevenger.

It was known that she could turn herself into a rabbit,

for a dog was once seen chasing a rabbit

and the rabbit jumped through the window of a house,

and there-

in the same instant,

in the window

- stood Peggy Clevenger.

On another occasion, a man saw a lizard

and tried to kill it by crushing it with a large rock.

When the rock hit the lizard,

the lizard disappeared

and Peggy Clevenger materialized on the spot

and smacked the man in the face. 

Clevenger is a Hessian name.

Peggy lived in Pasadena,

another of the now vanished towns, about five miles east of Mt. Misery.

It was said

that she had a stocking full of gold.

Her remains were found one morning

in the smoking ruins of her cabin,

but there was no trace of the gold. 

Version 2:

It was said that she had a stocking full of gold, 

the Witch of the Pines, Peggy Clevenger.

And on occasion

could turn into a rabbit. 

To discourage visits

she disappeared to a vanished town. 

Windows and doors materialized one morning

the smoking ruins of her cabin,

in Pasadena, five miles east of Mt. Misery

but there was no trace of the gold.

The Blueberry Pickers

Version 1:

We had come to a clearing

where thousands of blueberry bushes grew. 

In the center of it was the packing house-

a small, low building

with open and screenless windows on all sides.

In front of it was a school bus marked “Farm Labor Transport.” 

The driver stood beside his bus. 

He was a tall and amiable-looking man,

with bare feet he wore green trousers and a T-shirt. 

The end of the working day had come. 

Pickers were swarming around a pump-

old women, middle-aged men, a young girl.

 A line was waiting to use an outhouse near the pump.

Inside the packing house,

berries half an inch thick were rolling up a portable conveyor belt

and, eventually, into pint boxes.

Charlie’s sister was packing the boxes. 

Charlie’s daughter –in-law was putting cellophane over them. 

Charlie’s son Jim was supervising the operation.

Charlie picked up a pint box

 in which the berries were mounded high,

and he told me with disgust that

some supermarket chains knock off these mounds of extra berries

 and put them in new boxes, getting three

 or four extra pints per twelve-box tray. 

At one window,

pickers were turning in tickets of various colors, and they were given cash in return. 

One picker,

who appeared to be at least in his sixties,

tapped Charlie on the arm and showed him a thick packet of tickets

 held together with a rubber band.

“I found these,” the man said.  “They must have fallen out of your son’s pocket.” 

He gave the packet to Charlie, who thanked him

and counted the tickets. 

Charlie said,

“These tickets

are worth seventy-five dollars.”

Version 2:

 The end of the working day had come.

 Berries, half an inch thick

were rolling up a portable conveyor belt

and eventually, into pint boxes.

Mounded high

cellophane over them.

Pickers swarmed

in the clearing

where thousands of blueberry bushes grow.

The screenless windows

of the packing house

stood amiable and bare.

Inside Charlie’s sister was packing the boxes.

Pickers turned in

their tickets for cash,

and a man gave Charlie a packet

held together with a rubber band.

“I found these,” the man said. 

The tickets were worth seventy-five dollars.

In the front

A school bus was marked

“Farm Labor Transport”.