Transcendence is often a necessity.
—Brian Swimme, “The Powers of the Universe,” EnlightenNext
The sweetest fruit
comes from
the orchard floor,
strewn with apricots so ripe
they have yielded
to the weight
of their own juice.
What we choose
to do with our weight.
The fall,
says my teacher,
is more painful
the higher we go.
And fall, she says,
we will.
Let me use my weight,
then, as apricots do,
as sweet proof
that some make it
through the frost.
And when I fall,
let me fall as apricots do,
with full surrender to falling.
That opening stanza is so fine, and there’s one more that makes apricot juice of my imagination,
“And when I fall,
let me fall as apricots do,
with full surrender to falling. …”
I want the poem to somehow end on this note. Ah, that it could end on the falling. Actually, I think there’s a shorter poem in here.
The sweetest fruit
comes from
the orchard floor,
strewn with apricots so ripe
they have yielded
to the weight
of their own juice.
What we choose
to do with our weight.
The fall,
says my teacher,
is more painful
the higher we go.
And fall, she says,
we will.
And when I fall,
let me fall as apricots do,
with full surrender to falling.