Sipping latte in my sunlit garden lightened my heart after winter. Waiting for those green shoots to emerge I drifted into reminiscing about the luscious ripe fruits I’d picked.
Leading a nomadic life I’d good fortune to feed from many a kind neighbours trees. Mulberries in my childhood where I climbed into those upper branches bouncing about as my sheet below caught the fruit. It’s dark stain evident on kid’s lucky lips.
The lychees plundered from Indian orchards; red grapefruits and mandarins in NZ; mangoes and custard apples from that orchard next door. Nothing is sweeter than fruit straight from the tree.
Travelling on a shoestring I’d met nothing but kind care from every nationality and religion as I wandered. Yet here we are all in isolation … no one left and no came on the bare platform, transport had grounded to a halt.
d’Verse, 144 words, Sarah
include “no one left and no one came on the bare platform”
My in-laws lived in Arizona and had both an orange and grapefruit tree…
Heard much later after they moved that the new owners cut the trees down… Their loss… was all I could think.
I had a black cherry tree in the yard of my first home. But it was so over grown that only the birds got the fruit. The new owners there too cut down that tree – for yard space. I wonder how old fruit trees can live if cared for?
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I’m guessing centuries but they stop fruit bearing after decades …
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This is blessing dear Kate.
Enjoy.
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thanks Rupali, it is indeed 🙂
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You said it, sister! An artful and creative way to build to the final, “key” phrase. I, for one, have no complaints about your rhapsodizing about fruit trees.
My own childhood thrilled to the peach tree we had just outside the garden. Many a summer my shirt bore happy proof of the peach juice that had run down my chin.
A previous entry inspired comments about our amazing red raspberry shrubs, too, purple-stained fingers testifying to their excellence.
Ah, the summer vacations of days gone by! Memories that will delight forever.
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This reminded me of the mulberries I ate growing up. I remember my purple-stained hands and feet…so much fun! 🙂
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for sure but never an activity we could hide 🙂
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Being a nomad these days is something that feels hard…
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Beautifully evoked
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You’re welcome
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Refreshing poem, Kate and you made me reminisce my childhood days when me and my cousins would go to this farm and pluck and eat straight from the trees. What a joy those days were.
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indeed, maybe we will do it again once lockdown has lifted 🙂
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Your poem reminds us there will be better days ahead, when we can tasted the sweetness of life even more.
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ah glad someone got it, a star to buckeye!
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It’s amazing when you meet do many awesome people…
💕🕯✨
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travel offered a plethora 🙂
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Truly, truly sad (temporary) ending to a life well nurtured! It will come round again.
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ha it is just fiction, most of it anyway … I’m more than happy in isolation 🙂
My travel days are well over, no need to roam 🙂
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My mouth waters as you talks about those fruits…i could imagine how you ate them with gusto…i am smiling as i imagine..then the ending…you had me there kate🙂
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thanks Mich, really appreciate your kind words … love your poet inspired poem 🙂
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Beautiful and makes me smile!
We grew up with all kinds of fruit trees. That and a huge veggie garden was how my parents fed us. 🙂
I remember my dad planted two fruitless mulberry trees (that’s what they told him they were at the tree-store 🙂 ). Well, both fruitless mulberry trees bore fruit, loads of it, every year! Ha! We enjoyed them so much! And so did the birds. Us kids had purple lips and purple feet from all those mulberries! We did the sheet on the ground, shake the tree, too. 🙂
(((HUGS))) 🙂
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lol they were so juicy and delicious! We also collected the leaves for our silkworm collection so the elderly widow neighbours knew us well 🙂
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such sweet descriptions of fruits from around the world. and then the sad twist there. right there. sigh.
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ha, trying to capture our feelings of freedom before and now … grounded to a sudden halt 🙂
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Such sensual descriptions. Great contrast between the richness and freedom at the start and the constraint at the end.
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I love this picture of fruits from the tree and shared! I was so poor one summer in college that I lived on mulberries in jello. I still like the flavor even if around here no one eats them …
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sounds delic, when I was a student our rental had a prolific artichoke plant … was great trading the fruit with neighbours for whatever they had 🙂
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Loved this!
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Yes, fresh fruits, tomatoes from the garden..all that the best. 😉
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What a beautiful poem.💕❤️
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We all travel in our minds these days. I loved the descriptions of the fruit trees. My childhood was spent in the upper branches of an almond, carob, plum, fig, orange, grapefruit tree any time I could manage it …
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yes it was the best time … sad kids don’t get such opportunities these days
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Some do … some of my nieces and nephews’ children do. Being up in the trees was the best time for me indeed. Much of childhood was not, but there were beautiful things, too, and this was one. 🙂
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The happy travelers are shut up and down, the fruit ripens, rots, and falls to the ground, intoxicating the insects.
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Your poems always have a positive tone to them.
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