Hi Margaret,
I'm caught by this poem. I'm finding I'm reading it slowly and savouring the 
richness of the images I find. The details are lush, and well described.
I also love the way things aren't said. Her sister seems in the same 
situation Marjani's in - and I suspect her mother-in-law has hopes of 
becoming a grandmother soon. But Marjani's mind is on other things. So much 
is hinted at! But, of course, none of these things are said, and, from her 
perspective, might not be even hinted at! And it's all written in such 
tender, delicate, language. I like the way these other people don't intrude 
into Marjani's world. I like the way, just as she's hidden beneath her 
scarf, her thoughts are her own - yet we glimpse what might be there.
I was surprised by the word "Somali" appearing in the poem. Are the 
neighbours from another country - Somalia - and she isn't? If they are from 
elsewhere I wondered why I was being told that! (If everyone's Somali - and 
this is just a device for telling me that - do I really need to know?).
I'm also wondering about the title... OK I know it begins with shopping for 
fruit - but it ends by mentioning an egg! The last sentence is astonishingly 
good. But it does make me realise how far the poem has taken me.
So I'm wondering two connected things:
If the title was "On The Day Of Shopping For Fruit" (or something like that, 
perhaps a bit less ungainly...)
... and the last stanza is about the night of that particular day.
I think I would then feel happier because I could connect the shopping trip 
and the middle-of-the-night experience more closely. And I would still see 
how different they were as well. But the ways they worked with and against 
each other could be (even) more clear.
Bob


>From: grasshopper <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: New sub: Shopping for Fruit
>Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 06:54:21 -0000
>
>           Shopping for Fruit
>.......
>         ('Every morn and every night
>........Some are born to sweet delight.' - William Blake)
>Marjani walks to the market with her sister,
>the houseboy three respectful steps behind.
>Her lowered eyes travel on her feet
>which sweep like brush-twigs, swirling
>the dust. Her sandals sweep away the thoughts
>that crowd her path, sweet thorn, the span
>of gnat-wings, a mountain's shadow, all
>inside her head, circled by a tussah scarf.
>
>Her fingertips linger on a bolt of indigo cloth, plump
>as a thrush's breast. It sings to her of arches,
>deep-shadowed gardens, marble fountains
>behind elaborate gates. Then it slides beneath
>her grasp. She curves her palm on a melon,
>fat and orange, presses its navel to test
>the ripeness, lifts the small heavy bellies
>of figs, green weights sweat-sticky on her flesh.
>
>Beyond a white wall, prayer rises to heaven
>in a hundred coloured strands. The sky is the holiest sight,
>she thinks. Surely God's eyes are blue. Her sister
>cradles plantains. They both wait for the needful child.
>This evening, with well-washed hands, she will prepare
>a meal for the unknown husband who comes near
>only at night. Marriage is strange and sharp as smells
>that curl from the Somali neighbour's kitchen. Spices stirred
>by gold-bangled black hands, pink when they open.
>
>When her husband is away and his mother snores,
>Marjani steals outside and unveils her shoulders
>to the stars. Now she holds bright air in her fingers,
>tastes the sun on her tongue. Once she had words,
>but they flew away on a blue silk bird, beyond the hills
>inside the sky. Now she smiles, silent as a new-laid egg.
>
>
>
>                                                    (M.A.Griffiths)

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