And all fruit begin in seclusion, as blossom
and bee come together. Call it symbiotic.
When beauty is shed in rain and petals
we think of April weddings, death even,
in those pale, temporal moments.
But never birth, yet there it is, nestling in the
core, like the first beat of a heart.
I think of Mulberries and see you still
waiting under heart-shaped leaves
burgeoning with love. In a London park,
the young tree with bark already wizened
sentinel through a thousand deciduous days.
And then a strange, first flowering. Spiked and green
berry-shaped in readiness for the red-black fruity flush.
Some years we'd catch the harvest just in time
thick armed branches, giving a leg up
blooded hands clambering for more
blooded mouths clamouring for one more burst
of that sweet-tart taste
We held our wedding picnic there. The tree
mature now. A late wedding,
one late September. The fruit almost over
but just enough bittersweet remains,
to fill a marriage cup.
Interesting Link
Morus Londinium – unravelling the tale of London’s mulberries
Title taken from a line of Lawrence’s: Figs for this poem based on a memory that a fruit evokes as outlined in Mish’s Poetics Prompt: Always in Season
PoetryPix 