Blackberry Picking

Remember how Emperor Nero 
preferred playing on his fiddle
and how heroic Achilles 
preferred sulking to being a hero?

And how Marie Antoinette 
danced deep into the night,
and Rip van Winkel slept
right through the American Revolution

waking up in a free country
without kings and henchmen. So how
could anyone blame me now
for preferring to pick blackberries?

With dainty thumb and finger
I lift the fanged branch by its tail,
and lo: a trio of unsuspecting beauties 
I pluck ensemble and drop in my pail.