The Friday Poem: Old Images

“A Very Good Pear”  By Lois Requist 

Not a pair or to pare, but a pear

I had a juicy one for breakfast

Grown in Gail’s garden

A good fruit shared with friends

Pear pie, too

She fed it to her book club

And gave us yellow globes wrapped in

The San Francisco Chronicle

The taste fine and fragile

She has too many

Pears don’t stay succulent

Sweet to the tongue

We discuss books, ideas, the world as it is

Or as (we think) it should be

The books, too, mature in our hands

Marked with turned down corners

Characters, like friends, change

With familiarity

Moving through each of our minds, lives

Circulating in the group think

So many books to read 

Pears to eat

Friends to savor

Very fine fruit!

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Now that you’ve read the poem, here is a commentary by Benicia Patch Poetry Maestro Jeff Burkhart:

Today’s poem is “A Very Good Pear” and was written by Lois Requist, Benicia’s current Poet Laureate. Lois set’s the scene by toying with the word “pear” specifying what pear we are talking about and goes on to show how the simple acts of growing, sharing and tasting a pear can give life meaning and bring pleasure, and sustenance.  Then a verse ponders the taste and fragility of a pear as it touches our tongue and we taste it. I love people describing feelings, tastes and smells in words. Describing a color to a blind person or them explaining what a particular sound is to them. The senses are personal and particular to each individual. As Lois leads us along she parallels the pear’s life cycle to a seasoning of a book both showing signs of age and use.

The poem ends pondering the way time changes all living things as well as relationships. To me, it speaks to the nourishing satisfaction we garner as we fill ourselves with tastes of food, friends and ideas. I agree with Lois completely which, I think, makes us a perfect “pear.”

Until next week,

Jeff Burkhart

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