June in Blue and Gold - With a Taste of Loquat Fruit

  

June in Gold and Blue 


“It was June and the world smelled like roses. The sunshine 
was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.”    
   ~ Maud Hart Lovelace


Hidden among stiff, broad, dark-green leaves, as if from 
an exotic isle, ripe bunches of loquat glow in afternoon sunrays
like “powdered gold” scattered on the slopes across the valley.

I am content to share a loquat, juice dripping down 
my chin, with a woodpecker that cut a groove in one side, 
tasting its tart sweetness. With a shrill call, the bird flies 
along a sine wave – rising, falling – too heavy for its wings. 

I thought it was a parrot, one of our Pasadena invaders,
relentlessly chased away by my resident finches and doves.
I was relieved to see a bright, scarlet spot on its head, 
black and white striped wings peeking beneath the branches.

“Hello, my dear. Welcome to my June Paradise. Please enjoy 
the fruit on the top. I cannot climb so high. Let’s share these 
life-giving delights.” The bird will not stay long. Its departure 
will leave a strange gash of absence, stretching shadows in its wake. 

Just like that dolphin, ten years ago, that joined our boat trip
to Catalina, jumping above the waves with such glee, we had to laugh. 
The dolphin laughed too, playfully teasing us with his ephemeral 
dance, contours outlined against the blue expanse of water and air.

Just like the striking, gold-furred grizzly bear, a mountain 
of primeval power, curling to sleep on my lawn. Misiek. 
My Protector. I’d swear I saw him once, at sunset. He came 
to my Oasis to rest, dream lucid dreams about me – 

– as I eat luscious loquats straight off the tree, listen 
to euphonious birdsong, gaze at the azure clarity 
of endless sky. Serene, I am here, where I belong. 
The taste of summer fruit. One June after another.

This poem to celebrate June, was written on a set of prompts created by Kathi Stafford for the Westside Women Writers group.  The prompt includes two quotations about the month of June, and a set of words to which synonyms were to be found and used in a poem. 

"Green was the silence, wet was the light,

the month of June trembled like a butterfly.”

 ~ Pablo Neruda

"It was June and the world smelled like roses. The sunshine 

was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.”    

~ Maud Hart Lovelace

Please write down a synonym for each of the following words:

Dramatic - striking

Musical - melodious, mellifluous, euphonious 

Garden - paradise, oasis

Premonition - inkling

Quiet - serene, tranquil

Pleasure - delight

Ancient - primeval, olden

Scratch  - groove, gash, gouge

Please write a poem about the month of June incorporating most of your synonyms and your first reaction to the Neruda or Lovelace lines."

I do not have much experience in writing on prompt, partly because I do not like it, it seems like putting your mind in a cage of someone else's design, limiting the imagination. So after reading the prompt I decided to skip writing entirely. The next morning, as I had my tea on the patio I heard a new shrill bird call and looked for its source. It seemed foreign to my garden, maybe a parrot? It turned out to be a woodpecker that came to have some loquats! So I wrote about the encounter, using a paraphrase from the second poetry prompt and not worrying about the synonyms at all. I have not looked them up yet. 

Once the poem took shape, I went through the synonyms and replaced some of the words or descriptions with the terms found in my synonym search. I was quite pleased with the result, even though it was yet again on the same theme of being at home in my garden. I prefer to seek shelter in my garden in these trouble times. I share my garden with lots and lots of birds and I'm glad to see occasional visitors, like the woodpecker I saw today.  After emailing the poem, next day, I saw the woodpecker again. It was flying from the lemon tree to the loquat in a strange up-and-down pattern, that made me thought that it was too heavy for its wings. So I worked this line into the poem. 

Two other animals made their appearances too - a real dolphin, so playful, gleeful even - and an imaginary golden grizzly bear, Misiek my Protector. His corner of my garden is behind the pomegranate tree... It would be great to have such a "mountain of primeval power" to protect and defend me in my garden. I live alone, not even with a dog, my birds and roses as my pets. . . 

Why loquats, though?  To me, it is the ultimate exotic of fruit. I have never seen one or even heard about it while living in Poland and Canada. The first time I saw a loquat was when I went to explore my new garden in California in the spring of 1998! Apparently, it was fashionable in the 1940s and 1950s when this neighborhood was built.  In the early 2000s, we had lots of squirrels here, so there was no fruit left for us. Then the tree dried out and almost died in the drought. Stuck in a corner, it was easy to overlook. 

 Finally, after a rainy winter, the tree recovered, and is full of yellow fruit, that becomes darker, almost orange as it ripens, and has large shiny brown seeds inside. The juice is tart when the fruit is still greenish, but sweet and refreshing when the fruit is fully ripe. Alas, once you pick it, it quickly turns brown and rots. It just does not keep the way oranges or apples do. So the best solution is to eat it right away, right off the tree. . .