September in the hedgerows

The lane behind the loft is a tunnel by September. Bramble has had all summer to climb the hedges and meet in the middle, and the fruit comes in waves: hard and red at the top, where the sun has not reached yet; soft and black at hand height, where everyone else has been first.

We pick in the evening, when the day's warmth is still in the berries and the air has started to turn. The smell comes in layers. The fruit first, dark and a little winey. Then the leaf, if you crush it: green, bitter, the thing that stops blackberry from being jam. Then the hedge itself, dog rose gone over, damp earth, the first moss of autumn on the north side of the wall.

Blackcurrant leaf gave us that bite in the opening. Rose, in a small dose, stands for the hedge as it was in flower a few weeks before. Oakmoss and a white musk are the lane as the light goes: cool, dim, your hands stained and your jar full.

We come back with purple fingers and a bag of leaves for the still, and we are always later than we meant to be. The kettle goes on. The leaves go in the fridge for the morning.

Blackberry Lane is that walk home, kept.