July 18, 2009

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  What is the point of having experience, knowledge, or talent if I don’t give it away?  Of having stories if I don’t tell them to others?  Of having wealth if I don’t share it?  I don’t intend to be cremated with any of it!  It is in giving that I connect  with others, and with the world.  (Isabel Allende)

  CANTALOUPE by Lee Robinson

  Friday I sniffed it
  in the grocery store, turned it
  in my hands, looking
  for bruises
  in the rough, webbed rind.
  My mother’s voice—the one
  I carry always in my head—
  pronounced it fine. Ripe,
  but not too soft.
  
  I bagged and bought it,
  would have given it to you
  for breakfast—this fruit
  first grown in Cantalupo, not far
  from Rome. I imagined you,
  my sleepy emperor, coming
  to the table in your towel toga,
  digging into the luscious
  orange flesh
  with a golden spoon,
  
  and afterwards,
  reclining, your smile
  satisfied,
  imperial.
  
  Now I open the trunk of my car
  to find the cantaloupe
  still there, flattened, sour,
  having baked all weekend
  in August’s oven.
  
  Grieving is useless,
  my mother would say,
  Just get another.
  
  Bur why am I so certain
  that no other fruit
  will ever be as sweet
  as that—
  
  the one
  I would have cut in half,
  scooped the seeds from,
  that one I would have given you
  on Saturday morning?
  

  • 10:16 am
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