Blackberry pie, blackberry jelly and jam, blackberry cobbler, blackberry ice cream, blackberries on yogurt, blackberry wine (and, oops, vinegar), blackberries from the vine … I’ve enjoyed them all! It’s a special time each summer when the blackberries ripen and my berry bucket calls.

Even so, I have mixed feelings about the brambles that bear the berries. Everyone knows that blackberries are an invasive species — and the fast-growing brambles are troublesome, no doubt — but each late summer they provide delicious berries for us all. Enjoying those blackberries is something I look forward to, even when I am worried that thorny predicaments, too, may wait ahead.

That tension, between sweetness and thorn, reminds me of an old story — you may well have heard something like it — about an old

See Full Page