WILD PLUMS
It’s erotic—my hands sifting through
plum flesh for pits—the purple skins,
the golden juice like a fine wine—
this bowl overflowing.
*
But wait, there is more to that story.
There is the moment when we stood
in the September dusk in the storm light—
four women laughing in awe at the miraculous
choreography of this evening—harvest moon,
late summer wind blowing through
branches so laden with plums they fall
off by the dozens into our open palms.
*
Gathering to harvest the way peoples
have always gathered when the year
spins around to equinox again. Each
to make our own version of plum jam—
the alchemy of this particular summer,
where grief and beauty have been lovers.
*
This season where we have all lost someone
where we have sung river songs
by the river and laid our bare bodies
on warm rocks in the sun, finding the places
where our mythologies weave,
where we dream not only for ourselves
but for each other.
*
Yes, this is the taste of a summer
that will be remembered in mid-winter—
carried in the essence of these plums—
this memory of bright stars and purple asters
and the bears rumbling around
gorging before they sleep. This moment
of equal day and night, just before the sun
sun slants south to the honey of fall
and then the crystalline thin light of winter.
*
But wait, I am here, standing in the kitchen
my hands plunged into a bowl of pulp,
plums boiling on the stove with cardamom
and cinnamon –thinking of
all the ways we make love with life,
all the exquisite ways we are offered
to commune with the fruits of the world—
so freely given. So freely given.