The Blueberry Pickers [Assignment 1.B]

We had come to a clearing
Where thousands of blueberry bushes grew.
In the center was the packing house
Small, low, with open and screenless windows
On all sides.
In front was a school bus
Marked "Farm Labor Transport"
The driver stood beside his bus:
A tall and amiable looking man
With bare feet.
He wore green trousers
And a T-shirt.
The end of the working day had come.
Pickers were swarming around a pump-
Old women, middle-aged men, a young girl.
A line was waiting
To use an outhouse near the pump.
Inside the packing house, berries-
Half an inch thick-
Were rolled up a portable conveyor belt, and,
Eventually,
Into pint boxes.
Charlie's sister was packing the boxes;
Charlie's daughter-in-law was putting cellophane over them
Charlie's son Jim was supervising the operation
Charlie
Picked up a pint box in which berries were mounded high
And told me with disgust
That some supermarket chains
Knock off these mounds
Of extra berries
And put them in new boxes,
Getting three or four extra pints per twelve-box tray.
At one window,
Pickers were turning in tickets of various colors
And were given cash in return.
On picker,
Who appeared to be
At least
In his sixties
Tapped Charlie on the arm and showed him
A thick packet of tickets
Held together with a rubber band.
"I found these,"
The man said.
"They must have fallen out of your son's pocket."
He gave the packet to Charlie,
Who thanked him
And counted the tickets.
Charlie said,
"These tickets are worth
seventy-five dollars."