Dear max lovely but if 'The fruit suits crows, magpies and emus,'which one
is your neighbour?
P puzzled P
-----Original Message-----
From: Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and
poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Max Richards
Sent: 07 February 2007 03:06
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: snap: Pricks
Pricks
Twelve prickly pears - trees are they? -
in single file along the park fence.
Midsummer dusk ... shoulder to shoulder
they signal standoffishness.
Their bulbous deformity softened
by shadow draws me into their aura.
And flowering! - yellow frilly cups.
Only the petals are not prickly.
I'm reaching up, pinching the base
of the yellowest, most open flower,
bending it to and fro till soon
it breaks away. Brought close -
my nose registers no perfume,
but fingers tickle with prickles.
Ease it gingerly into my shirt pocket,
stride to catch up with wife and dogs.
Later, I hold the flower out to her:
'prickly pear - and soon it's Valentine's Day'.
Before I can say 'No!' she takes it from me,
exclaiming with the pain I've inflicted on her.
*
It needs bright bathroom light and tweezers
to lift the slender shafts from fingers and thumbs.
And the flower, moved to a liqueur glass,
now glowers on the windowledge,
has left behind next to my heart
a sharp continuing twinge ...
*
'I can tell you it's an African plant',
says my South African park-acquaintance
while our dogs touch noses and flirt a bit,
'the fruit is delicious, indescribable.'
A plant of the Americas, say the websites,
introduced with its parasite the cochineal,
to Botany Bay by Joseph Banks.
A cochineal industry might
provide dye for British redcoats.
The fruit suits crows, magpies and emus,
whose droppings carry the prolific seed.
The pear invaded three colonies,
ruined countless farmers, resisting
arsenic and other poisons for years,
till state scientists tried
the parasite cactoblastis ...
Much land was restored to use,
country towns flourished again.
At Boonarga, west of Dalby, now stands
the Cactoblastis Memorial Hall.
*
God was in a bold Picasso phase
when He created the prickly pear.
The bulges and joints parody
human and plant anatomy,
the limbs mimic those of victims
of tropical diseases.
Just now the topmost bulges
are in flower, soon to fruit.
The harvest, lacking emus, I shall
dispute with crows and magpies.
Wednesday 7 February 2007
Max Richards
Doncaster, Victoria
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