Featured Poet: Marnie Cobbs, Eaton
 Marnie works as a bookbinder, conserving rare books and whatever else comes her way, like 3rd generation cookbooks. She has always written poems and likes to paint as well, and started The Uphill House in 1998 to create her own books and cards.
A few summers ago, my father took a fall triggering depression, and within a few weeks there was only an empty shell where his humor and energy had been. The year before, we had had a banner year of berries out behind the barn, and he had come out often to check on me as I gleefully picked and picked. We’ve got him back again now, though I don’t think he’d be interested in reading this poem with its dark tone.
Diminishment
for my father during his depression
There are no blackberries there at all
behind the barn, thick with the brambles,
the leaping canes, the attentive thorn.
And after last year’s abundance,
quart after quart, hours spent reaching in,
nudging, tipping, rolling them into your hand.
And none up the road, though
along the grassy trail by the lake
there were some, weeks ago – I picked a heaping
handful, carried them out in the front of my shirt.
Some years are like that.
Nothing where something used to be.
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