Plum

Photo credit: chugbot from morguefile.com

It is a dark and captivating fruit. Sour when it should be sweet. Oddly
fleshy inside. Sensuous. Like an object conjured in a dream I would be
reluctant to discuss. Like those sins that still feel so good, ripening at the
edges of the mind. I travel to a province where they grow. It takes two
days. I arrive at night and check into a neon motel. I wake before dawn
and walk out to the orchards where the migrants have already begun to
pick. I watch them on their tripod ladders. Their children playing below,
speaking a language I do not understand. One of the workers gestures
toward me. Another pivots around. I nod and wave like a comrade. From
high in the tree someone tosses me a plum.

~ David Shumate

Plum

Photo credit: chugbot from morguefile.com

It is a dark and captivating fruit. Sour when it should be sweet. Oddly
fleshy inside. Sensuous. Like an object conjured in a dream I would be
reluctant to discuss. Like those sins that still feel so good, ripening at the
edges of the mind. I travel to a province where they grow. It takes two
days. I arrive at night and check into a neon motel. I wake before dawn
and walk out to the orchards where the migrants have already begun to
pick. I watch them on their tripod ladders. Their children playing below,
speaking a language I do not understand. One of the workers gestures
toward me. Another pivots around. I nod and wave like a comrade. From
high in the tree someone tosses me a plum.

~ David Shumate

I Will Not Die an Unlived Life

Source: Unknown/Favim

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible;
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.

~ Dawna Markova

I Will Not Die an Unlived Life

Source: Unknown/Favim

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible;
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.

~ Dawna Markova

Slanting Light

Source: Unknown

Slanting light casts onto a stucco wall
the shadows of upwardly zigzagging plum branches.

I can see the thinning of branches to the very twig.
I have to sift what you say, what she thinks,

what he believes is genetic strength, what
they agree is inevitable. I have to sift this

quirky and lashing stillness of form to see myself,
even as I see laid out on a table for Death

an assortment of pomegranates and gourds.
And what if Death eats a few pomegranate seeds?

Does it insure a few years of pungent spring?
I see one gourd, yellow from midsection to top

and zucchini-green lower down, but
already the big orange gourd is gnawed black.

I have no idea why the one survives the killing nights.
I have to sift what you said, what I felt,

what you hoped, what I knew. I have to sift
death as the stark light sifts the branches of the plum.

~ Arthur Sze

Slanting Light

Source: Unknown

Slanting light casts onto a stucco wall
the shadows of upwardly zigzagging plum branches.

I can see the thinning of branches to the very twig.
I have to sift what you say, what she thinks,

what he believes is genetic strength, what
they agree is inevitable. I have to sift this

quirky and lashing stillness of form to see myself,
even as I see laid out on a table for Death

an assortment of pomegranates and gourds.
And what if Death eats a few pomegranate seeds?

Does it insure a few years of pungent spring?
I see one gourd, yellow from midsection to top

and zucchini-green lower down, but
already the big orange gourd is gnawed black.

I have no idea why the one survives the killing nights.
I have to sift what you said, what I felt,

what you hoped, what I knew. I have to sift
death as the stark light sifts the branches of the plum.

~ Arthur Sze