Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Juditha Dowd: "Conversing with an Orange"




















YĆ¼ksel taught us the right way
to eat the Turkish portakal.
You do it slowly, talking with friends,
attentive to the task.

I saw that preparation
can be an aspect of taste,
as time may often be of place,
and I memorized the rule:

Slice off the stem,
work your knife in carefully
under the pebbled skin.
Score it in six vertical lines.

An orange can last all evening
with a glass of sweetened tea,
talk melding with the fruit,
the stacked elliptical peel.

You climb the honey-scented hills
of Izmir or Mersin,
build a small white fortress
from the wrinkled seeds.



"Conversing with an Orange" by Juditha Dowd, from Back Where We Belong (Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press, 2012). Text as posted on Your Daily Poem (4/11/2013).

Art credit: "Orange with Leaf," oil on hardboard, painting by Faith Te.


2 comments :

  1. Perhaps the best poem about fruit since Wallace Stevens' "Study of Two Pears"! Merci.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A good poem about orange. I like it

    ReplyDelete

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