Durazno Dulce
It's January,
and I'm eating a ripe peach.
The cool flesh quenches me
like a South Carolina breeze
off the distant mountain ridges.
I can almost taste the sweet clover
growing between the orchard rows
when I close my eyes and chew slowly.
It's funny,
that this fuzzy, half-eaten fruit
is from the country of Chile
and not from Greer, or Cooley Springs.
Though I've been down Highway 25,
long before it turned four-lane,
I can't quite picture the towering Andes
or feel the wind from their snow-capped peaks.
4 comments:
I find it strange that we are so disconnected from our food. Not so long ago peaches and strawberries were only available at certain times of the year; now we can get them at Christmas if we want.
Your piece captured the disconnect clearly. I especially liked your ending lines.
Sitting here in 10 degree weather, wishing I had one of those peaches! Nice piece.
Thanks for the feedback, y'all. If you haven't already got the chance, check out Robert Morgan's poem "Canning Time". (It's included in Strange Attractor: New and Selected Poems). I think it's the perfect poem about canning peaches. It makes me wish I had a syrupy jar of my grandmother's every time I read it.
Got some in the cellar, David--not your grandmother's but the taste of home-canned can't be beat. Nice and cold too, with the recent weather!
Somewhere I have a peaches poem too; I'll have to dig it out and see if it's worth posting.
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