Ode to a Lemon, Neruda

As we anticipate our lemon tree blooming, wondering if it will set fruit this year or not here is a poem to the lemon tree by the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. It is a wonderfully organic, sensuous poem. Every year for the past 4 years or more the tree has blossomed, but the fruit drops without setting, at best. This year we live in hope...

Ode to a Lemon
Pablo Neruda

Out of lemon flowers

loosed

on the moonlight, love's

lashed and insatiable

essences,

sodden with fragrance,

the lemon tree's yellow

emerges,

the lemons

move down

from the tree's planetarium

Delicate merchandise!

the harbors are big with it-

bazaars

for the light and the

barbarous gold.

We open

the halves

of a miracle,

and a clotting of acids

brims

into the starry

divisions:

creation's

original juices,

irreducible, changeless,

alive:

so the freshness lives on

in a lemon,

in the sweet-smelling house of the rind,

the proportions, arcane and acerb.

Cutting the lemon

the knife

leaves a little cathedral:

alcoves unguessed by the eye

that open acidulous glass

to the light; topazes

riding the droplets,

altars,

aromatic facades.

So, while the hand

holds the cut of the lemon,

half a world

on a trencher,

the gold of the universe

wells

to your touch:

a cup yellow

with miracles,

a breast and a nipple

perfuming the earth;

a flashing made fruitage,

the diminutive fire of a planet.

Sowing season 2011

 Here are the seedlings one week on from the pictures below. First, ate the sunflowers, and also one or two globe artichoke, violet. Second,are the emerging barlotto seedlings. Third, are dwarf French beans. Fourth is labelled Goldtuft, which is a variety of safflower. The next is Zinnia, Giant Scarlet, followed by field poppy, with Cavolo Nero in the pots behind. So far germination has been good to very good. The tomato seedlings have grown greatly and need to be potted on. I cannot do that until Saturday.