My Desire for Oranges
Rolling an orange from one hand to the other
finds me in the mind of the Orange Grower.
There is pleasure in a bowl of oranges.
Cezanne cannot be wrong.
A painterly bassinette… A nursery of rounded sighs…
The hand feels good holding an orange,
and the palm is satisfied.
Mounded like extra luggage in the bin,
oranges are loud, commonplace salespersons,
all heavy and handsome and of sunny dispositions…
undiapered as bawdy jokes.
These enlargements around pinched navels
are a hale shout from among the vegetables.
Glowing with well-being, heavy with flavor,
they freely accept being popular.
These energetic oranges! This mound of exuberance!
dimpled and indented in a youngster’s planted stance.
These placeholders – one of nature’s trillions –
herded like hoboes, raised like soldiers,
remind me of youth’s proud insouciance
clambering to mount the ramparts.
– by Carl Nelson
April 12, 2010 at 9:12 pm04 |
I have never read a better poem about oranges. For that matter, I have never read a better poem about fruit (well, maybe I’ll exclude an ode to a blackberry that I penned a few years back). Recognizing that statements beginning “I have never read a better … ” are ambiguous, I should also add that I really really like this poem.
April 12, 2010 at 9:12 pm04 |
Thanks! Oranges and I got to know each other as a child sitting out back in our tree in California. And I’ve loved oranges ever since.
July 16, 2017 at 9:12 pm07 |
This poem makes me dream in citrus. Love!
July 16, 2017 at 9:12 pm07 |
Thanks Mel. It should prevent dream scurvy. 🙂