You've probably all heard the phrase sweets
of the hills, sweets of the fields,
this is called "Sours of the Hills."
Last summer or last fall walking through some of the mountain
ridges north of Kyoto I decided to taste everything,
and most of them were sour.
[LAUGHTER]
You know all those little berries
that birds eat, those little blue ones, the little red ones,
little black ones.
I never have been able to master Japanese botany,
I don't know the names of more than half a dozen plants.
"Sours of the Hills."
Barbed seeds in double ranks sprung for taking off.
Half Moon hairy seeds in the hair of the wrist.
Majestic fluff, sails, rayed, and spined uphill
at eye level hardly a breeze.
Amber fruit with veins on a bending stem,
the size of an infant pea.
Plumes wave seeds spill.
Blue blackberry on a bush turned leaf purple.
Deep, sour, dark, tart, a sharp in the back of the mouth.
The hair and from head to foot stuck with seeds, burrs,
next summer's summer grasses.
Strolling through vines and grasses into the wild sour--
I didn't read that right, I couldn't read my writing.
I'll take the last part again.
Blue blackberry on a bush turned leaf purple.
Deep, sour, dark, tart, sharp in the back of the mouth.
The hair and from head to foot stuck with seeds, burrs,
next summer's mountain weeds.
Strolling through vines and grasses into the wild sour.