Both the friend in Chicago and the ex-colleague in Poland mentioned that they're probably picking strawberries this weekend. So far apart and yet, there are strawberries to be picked on both continents. Something I've never done is pick a fruit from a tree and eat it. Must jot it down as something else to do before I hit 60. :)

And of cos, fruit picking reminds me of a song. Just not a pleasant one. It's my favourite Billie Holiday song, about lynching of the blacks in the southern states by the Klu Klux Klan... her voice an instrument of her smothering anger at the injustice of it all, burning the edges of that tune and setting it alight. Here is a book named after her song... a difficult book to surface cos of its controversial nature but it did.

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter cry.
- Billie Holiday's song Strange Fruit, lyrics by Lewis Anderson