Beach Plum Jam

The beach plums

Enjoy the dunes

High winds

Blowing sands

Salt

The company of poison ivy

And everyone who uses them

Native American

Pilgrim

Cape Codder

Tourist.

The plums flourish on lands

First purchased from sachems

Who never owned them –

Not a tree or a dune –

For four coats

Three axes

A day’s plowing with a team of oxen.

Land that has seen grazing

And whaling

Fishing and fencing

Bogs and berries.

Land that remembers the Wampanoag

Here for but three thousand years

As do we who fill our pails

Boil the plums

Separate seed from fruit

Squeeze the beach plum flesh

Extract its essence

As we squeeze each other

The sweet juices we cook

In anaerobic jars

To make the jam

To smell the sweetness

The sweat

The sour

The desirable

To lick our fingers

And in memory

To preserve it all.