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Feb 27
poem challenge: A Celebration of Trees!
Love to write

​To the Fig Tree on Koloĉep Island

When I say “fig” 
I do not mean the kind 
you get at the supermarket
in a clear plastic tub. 
I do not mean the kind
that is shriveled, and brown, 
and crackles when cleaved open
by a child with dirty nails. 

When I say “fig”
I mean the kind that dangles,
purple and glowing 
from a thicket of foliage 
above a cobbled street. 

Have you ever stood 
at the edge of the Adriatic 
under the shade of a tree 
as old as a country 
and eaten the pith of a fruit 
the color of the sky at dusk?

What is this sudden urge we call longing?
When, in the late afternoon 
of a Saturday in January, 
as you loiter under the fluorescent lights 
in aisle six, you demand to have the heart 
of a past summer on your tongue. 

You buy a box despite them being old and dry,
and stand with your fingers in your mouth 
at a bus stop on the corner of Dorset,
halfway around the world from the tree
that has not likely been long lost to sun. 

When you consider the heat,
and the distance, and all the time 
it takes to deliver life (first to your palm and then to your lips),
really, what is the point
of waiting a moment longer before returning
to the fig on Koloĉep Island?
Since when has fruit never been enough of a reason to leave? 

 
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Posted: 02.27.21
About the Author: Love to write
Life is not a paragraph.
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Discussion

Comments

  1. Yellow Sweater
    Feb 28, 2021

    Have you visited Croatia? I took a trip to an island called solta a couple years ago (Where part of my family is originally from) The figs were incredible! Beautiful poem btw, as always. I particularly loved "under the shade of a tree
    as old as a country"

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  1. Love to write
    Feb 28, 2021

    Thank you! And yeah, my dad spent a few years in Croatia as a kid so we went and visited. I definitely agree with you about the figs... there’s nothing else like it!

    Life is not a paragraph.

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Contact: Susan Reid, Executive Director: [email protected]; (802) 324-9538