Late August

This is the plum season, the nights
blue and distended, the moon
hazed, this is the season of peaches

with their lush lobed bulbs
that glow in the dusk, apples
that drop and rot
sweetly, their brown skins veined as glands

No more the shrill voices
that cried Need Need
from the cold pond, bladed and urgent as new grass

Now it is the crickets
that say Ripe Ripe
slurred in the darkness, while the plums

dripping on the lawn outside
our window, burst
with a sound like thick syrup
muffled and slow

The air is still
warm, flesh moves over
flesh, there is no

hurry.

Eating the World

I was born with my mouth open...
entering this juicy world
of peaches and lemons and ripe sun
and the pink and secret flesh of women,
this world where dinner is in the breath
of the subtle desert,in the spices of the distant sea
which late at night drift over sleep.

I was born somewhere between
the brain and the pomegranate,
with a tongue tasting the delicious textures
of hair and hands and eyes;
I was born out of the heart stew,
out of the infinite bed, to walk upon
this infinite earth.

I want to feed you the flowers of ice
on this winter window,the aromas of many soups,
the scent of sacred candles
that follows me around this cedar house,
I want to feed you the lavender
that lifts up out of certain poems,
and the cinnamon of apples baking,
and the simple joy we see
in the sky when we fall in love.

I want to feed you the pungent soil
where I harvested garlic,
I want to feed you the memories
rising out of the aspen logs
when I split them, and the pinyon smoke
that gathers around the house on a still night,
and the mums left by the kitchen door.
I want to feed you the colors of rain
on deserted parking lots,and the folds of delirious patchouli
in the Indian skirt of the woman
on Market Street in San Francisco,
and the human incense of so much devotion
in tiny villages in Colorado and Peru.

I want to serve you breakfast at dawn,
I want to serve you the bread
that rises in the desert dust, serve you
the wind that wanders through the canyons,
serve you the stars that fall over the bed,
serve you the Hopi corn one thousand years old,
serve you the saffron in the western sunset,
serve you the delicate pollen that blows its lullaby
through each lonely wing of flesh;
I want to serve you the low hum of bees
clustered together all winter
eating their honey.

The Orange

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange -
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave -
They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy.
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It's new.

The rest of this day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I'm glad I exist.

Blackberry Eating

I love to go out in late September
among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries
to eat blackberries for breakfast,the stalks very prickly,
a penalty they earn for knowing the black art
of blackberry-making;
and as I stand among them
lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries
fall almost unbidden to my tongue,
as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words
like strengths or squinched,
many-lettered, one-syllabled lumps,
which I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well
in the silent, startled, icy, black language
of blackberry-eating in late September.

~Galway Kinnell
Another one for the lover of fruit-poems.

Persimmons

Finally understanding he was going blind,
my father would stay up all one night
waiting for a song, a ghost.
I gave him the persimmons, swelled, heavy as sadness,
and sweet as love.

This year, in the muddy lighting
of my parents' cellar, I rummage, looking
for something I lost.
My father sits on the tired, wooden stairs,
black cane between his knees,
hand over hand, gripping the handle.

He's so happy that I've come home.
I ask how his eyes are, a stupid question.
All gone, he answers.

Under some blankets, I find three scrolls.
I sit beside him and untie three paintings by my father:
Hibiscus leaf and a white flower.
Two cats preening.
Two persimmons, so full they want to drop from the cloth.

He raises both hands to touch the cloth,
asks, Which is this?

This is persimmons, Father.

Oh, the feel of the wolftail on the silk,
the strength, the tense
precision in the wrist.
I painted them hundreds of times eyes closed.
These I painted blind.
Some things never leave a person:
scent of the hair of one you love,
the texture of persimmons,
in your palm, the ripe weight.

From Persimmons, Li-Young Lee

This is just to say

Yesterday afternoon J finally found the first red plums of the season and picked out a great many to bring home.
We passed the day, ate dinner, watched some tv. Then, he walked into the kitchen with a sense of purpose. I trailed after him, lured.
He carefully chose the best ones, washed them, handed them to me. We bit into that cool jewel-red flesh, almost breathless with the perfection of it. A little juice spilled down my shirt and J pointed and laughed. I smiled and ate the rest over the sink-there was much more spilling of that sweet juice.
Later, I said the William Carlos Williams poem aloud to him about the cold sweet plums. "This is just to say, I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast; Forgive me- they were delicious, so sweet and so cold..."
We slept better last night than we have in a while.

fruit moon

Nadie come naranjas
bajo la luna llena.
Es preciso comer
fruta verde y helada.

or
Nobody eats oranges
under the full moon.
One must eat a fruit
that is green and cold.

From The Moon Rising by Federico Garcia Lorca.
The moon and the fruit jumped out at me here. This is why one must learn Spanish. Besides Neruda.
I'm going to Madrid.

Strawberries

There were never strawberries like the ones we had

that sultry afternoon

sitting on the step

of the open french window

facing each other

your knees held in mine

the blue plates in our laps

the strawberries glistening

in the hot sunlight

we dipped them in sugar

looking at each other

not hurrying the feast

for one to come

the empty plates laid on the stone together

with the two forks crossed

and I bent towards you

sweet in that air

in my arms

abandoned like a child

from your eager mouth

the taste of strawberries

in my memory

lean back again

let me love you

let the sun beat

on our forgetfulness

one hour of all

the heat intense

and summer lightning

on the Kilpatrick hills

let the storm wash the plates

~Edwin Morgan

This is just to say

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

~William Carlos Williams. How could I not post this?

Blossoms

From blossoms comes

this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy

at the bend in the road

where we turned toward signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs,

from hands,

from sweet fellowship in the bins,

comes nectar at the roadside, succulent

peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,

comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,

to carry within us an orchard, to eat

not only the skin,

but the shade,

not only the sugar,

but the days, to hold

the fruit in our hands, adore it,

then bite into

the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live

as if death were nowhere

in the background;

from joy to joy to joy,

from wing to wing,

from blossom to blossom to

impossible blossom,

to sweet impossible blossom.

~Li-Young Lee