They are not quite ripe, the gooseberries
growing behind Christie’s house,
but I pick them anyway and pop
the prickling pink globes
between my tongue
and the roof of my mouth,
oh sour round rush of surprise,
and I am a girl again, not quite ripe,
living in a country where I don’t speak the language
wandering the edge of the woods of the north
with a family that isn’t my own.
The mother, who later will shun me, shows me
how to pick and eat the gooseberries,
a fruit I have never seen before.
I learn to love them that instant,
something I can immediately translate with my tongue—
the marriage of sweet and terribly tart,
a flavor I know already by heart.
Greedy, greedy, my hands in a hurry,
I pull the gooseberries behind Christie’s house
into my mouth as if feeding the memory
of a longing to understand,
feeding it so I can better untangle its tethers
before the memory disappears again.
This poem leaves me breathless, Rosemary… it is so full of meaning. The trail of thought runs from the present to the past with an ultimate resting place that yields no rest. I wish I could have written such a poem.
Thank you so much for this comment. It was a poem that surprised me, that is for sure. I suppose it is part of the reason I write, so that I can make discoverieslike why the taste of gooseberries was so profound for me. Rosemerry
From: “comment-reply@wordpress.com” Reply-To: Date: Friday, July 24, 2015 at 3:23 PM To: Rosemerry Trommer Subject: [A Hundred Falling Veils] Comment: “Gooseberry Picking”
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You are in the summer swing, for sure. The gooseberries are so full of that nostalgic flavor here. The remembering, so sweet (and based on that woman who showed you, so tart!).