Autumn Harvest -- Poem: The Ugly Fruit! & Video : Take A Walk With Me!

     The interrelatedness of all being can be seen in the bumble bees harvesting nectar from the blue asters. In the harvesting pollen sticks to the bee. The bee then flies to another blue aster where pollen rubs off onto that flower. That pollen fertilizes that flower so seed develops then matures to grow next years beautiful blue asters.

    Nature is where I get into the moment, the eternal now. A meditation where the noise between my ears slows down frequently stops for a while. The video, "Take A Walk With Me!"  shares some of those moments.

    Always curious we human critters investigate explore nearly everything. An observation at an abandoned farm led to the following poem! 

   

 The Ugly Fruit!

On a September

Saturday morning,

At a former farm

Now public access

To the Sugar River,

As two grandsons

Get fishing tackle

I walk over to

The recently abandoned orchard

Curious, why one tree

Lacks those bright red apples

That so tempted Adam and Eve;

Instead I find

A brownish lump

Hangs down

Reach fingers up

Touch rough abrasive skin

As the fruit

Lets go into my hand;

At home, I place

Scarred ugliness

On the kitchen counter

Where the misshapened thing

Hunches over like Quasimodo,

Sure my wife will

Promptly toss it

Into the garbage;

Two days later

Before daylight

As I make coffee

Discover the disfigured

Fruit, still

Remains on the counter;

With peeling knife

Gifted by an uncle,

Deftly cut

Rough skin

From

Pale white flesh,

Slice off a piece

Tentatively bite down;

The subtle

Exquisite sweetness

Of pear

Floods my mouth

And being. 

    I'm a habitual hurried eater rarely taking the time to be mindful of the food I consume.  I get surprised sometimes by how good food can taste. Also frequently disappointed! This ugly pear provided a wakeup call for the taste buds and the psyche. Good nourishment feeds body, mind and soul. In this case even inspired a poem. (To hear the poem read hit this link for The Ugly Fruit.)

    Autumn brings a ripening of cultivated crops and wild fruit such as wild grapes and pin cherries. The milkweed pods fully ripe split open ready to release into the wind next years monarch butterfly food. The milk weed seeds feel as fine as baby's hair. My mother liked to tell a story of me as a toddler. She said that when feeding my baby sister that I'd rub my sisters hair and beg for "Grubby." 

    A great time to venture into the country and visit an apple orchard. A wide variety of apples picked fresh off the trees and of course the pears.  I'm usually disappointed when I buy a pear at the store. In doing a little research for this blog I now know why.  One of the articles I skimmed informed that pears need to be left out at room temperature to ripen. I had always put them 

in the fridge... thus my disappointment. Always more to learn. 

 

A wooden bear at Oakwood Fruit Farm proves that wearing a  mask is bearable. 

Who is that masked woman behind the bear waving?  Must be my wife!

Thanks for joining me. May Peace & Serenity Be Yours!

Location of Video Material: Most came from Dane County Parks, Halfway Prairie, Sugar River Basco Unit, Anderson Farm County Park; the hawks in my neighborhood, Oakwood Fruit Farm near Richland Center and misc. photos taken while walking out of doors. 

About the Blogger/Author: Anthony Hendricks published The Waste Land Revisited, an E Book poem about the dystopia, dysfunction and threat of global warming. A line from the poem, "Arrogant ignorance/ Trumps truth..." (An audio version is planned.) A Journey in the Human Dilemma, Living a Koan, a collection of poetry and prose.