The Raspberry Festival
by Mary Cornelius
Runestone, Volume 1

The Raspberry Festival 
Hopkins, Minnesota

Its woods are studded with 
stoplights now, its thickets 
partitioned with trim asphalt 
cages and sold in neat, square 
half-acre lots. The berry bushes 
have been seeded over with 
Lawn Restore and Miracle-Gro 
by the balding, sag-eyed fathers 
greedy for greener grass. And 
yet, Main Street still closes
each summer for the parade, 
they sail floats decked with flags
down the road like a river while 
the high school marching band 
plays Yankee Doodle and a new
upbeat arrangement of taps. The dads 
laugh beery laughs, clinking glasses 
of Summit—all praise Hopkins,
THE RASPBERRY CAPITAL!—
eating pie their wives bought 
the day before from the grocery, 
shipped in from outstate 
on the overnight train.