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March 25, 2024

Green Bananas

By Judith Alexander Brice

Green Bananas

Don't buy them, not yet
not when you smell the brine
and limbo lapping the shore,
the cold waves flapping,
reminding you
of your past, those sins
haunting at the door.

Don't buy them;
slip out, turn, then go --
beyond the path, down the road --
look straight and, forever;
don't, for a second, glance back.

Just listen.
Watch the line of rocks,
the frozen zone of past.
Then look for clovers -- four-leafed --
among the dandelions, their weeds,
the seeds that puff and float
into mellowed dreams of lazing sky.

There, just there, after you
see one lone deer --
its antlers scooping branches
as it grazes a velvet field of grass,
take the hard turn, at the fence
and you'll be on your way --

your days, your fruit
will quickly ripen gold.






This poem, in honor of Bea Friedeburg, offers a nod to Richard Tillinghast for his poem, "How to Get There" and to Thomas Lynch for his poem, "Green Bananas."



Article © Judith Alexander Brice. All rights reserved.
Published on 2020-05-11
Image(s) © Sand Pilarski. All rights reserved.
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