Summer’s Bounty is Here–Peaches, Pears, Berries
At least, that’s true near us right now. Strawberry season is basically over in most locations, and blueberries would probably be finished too if we hadn’t had such a cool spring/summer. Blackberries and raspberries are dependent on the local conditions, widely varying this year, and peaches appear in volume now. Cherries are about done in most places, watermelon has started to show up, and the late season fruits are ripening on the trees–pears and apples warning that despite the heat, summer will end soon enough.
We’ve been out in the u-pick fields, picking blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, which we clean, mix together, and freeze in increments of one-cup of fruit for use later in the year. Now that berries are available year-round in the grocery stores (because it’s always summer somewhere) it seems a bit excessive and self-indulgent to pick our own fruit and freeze it. But that doesn’t stop us because it always seems that the fruit we pick ourselves tastes the best.
Growing up, that wasn’t always the case. Local berries — especially the wild ones — were super-sweet but required a willingness to brave the mosquitos. And of course a wetter year and plumper berries also made for bigger, plumper and more numerous mosquitos.
My parents’ place had a handful of gnarled old apple trees that were beautiful in bloom but inconsistent in their willingness to convert those blossoms to fruit. The deer were the main recipients of that fruit.
And past the creek, along the country road, was an out of place and recalcitrant pear tree. It always produced pears, but they were never as ripe as they ought to be.
The Pear Tree
By the road, by the swamp, on the stony edge,
grew a pear tree, whose green pears were always hard,
bone hard, hard like a fist, almost as hard in the flesh
as in the pit, and whose branches were soft. An older child
climbing to the top could bend the upper branches to the ground,
and the other children, too small to climb, could harvest, could reach,
pull the hard green fruit from the leaves. Could pluck away
the fruit of the tree by the road
which belonged to no one but them.
And eat the white flesh with their hard white teeth,
the flesh that was never sweet. It was crisp, with a bitter taste
and dry smell, and belonged to no one but them. When they ate,
time stopped, the pears never ripened,
the children never grew, they stayed
together, summer sun dappling over their faces.
In the cool shade, they ate the cool fruit that was barely fruit at all
but was loved; they were barely friends at all,
but still loved, out of the absence of knowing
any other way, any better or any worse,
not knowing any sweeter or even that pears sometimes grew
larger with smaller pits and heavy juicy flesh,
or grew bright yellow, or reddened,
not knowing that this tree didn’t belong, wasn’t meant to grow
by the road where the trucks scattered gravel
on the roots as they passed. The children ate believing
their lives were good, would always be good, summer
would always come, there would always be one taller
to climb up and bend the branches down,
ate believing this was the way
pears were supposed to taste,
to crunch, to smell, to turn to summer,
bitter fleeting summer, in the mouth, on the tongue.
If you enjoyed The Pear Tree
Want to peruse a few more calorie-free poems about food? Links to 15 Delectable Poems about Food and Eating by Elisa Shoenberger appeared on Bookriot.com this past week. Funny to poignant and mutton to melons, these poems cover the range.
You’ll find more of my poems on this blog or in the collection Stars Crawl Out From Their Caves, which is available in both ebook and print.
Missed a poem of the week? Links to prior weeks are on this page.