when life gave you l…..

napowrimo day 22

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blossomsscents wafting reminiscences

over hung gardens heavy with fruiting

centuries citrus rich & delicate ancient

Babylon Mediterranean Spainean Tuscun suns etc….

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pollenated over to every property i rented as a student

from Greek immigrant landlord families in Adelaide

collecting harvests of glowering fruits

radiating winter and summer heats

mellowed lyrical as limoncellos

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piles of sullen yellow cricketballs and footballed balls

rollplayed propelled across desiccated patch

running catch with backyard cats

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lemons zested and juiced to use

in sherbertysyrupydrizzly cakes

marinadeslemonades myriadremedies

down a youthfilledthroat hopeless in love with tangyperfumes

coming through the years from my fruitybackgarden halcyon lemonydaze days…

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btw april 22 2021

https://www.napowrimo.net/

In a prompt originally posted this past February, Poets & Writers directs us to an essay by Urvi Kumbhaton the use of mangoes in diasporic literature. As she discusses in her essay, mangoes have become a sort of shorthand or symbol that writers use to invoke an entire culture, country, or way of life. This has the beauty of simplicity – but also the problems of simplicity, in that you really can’t sum up a culture in a single image or item, and you risk cliché if you try.

But at the same time, the “staying power” of the mango underscores the strength of metonymy in poetry. Following Poets & Writers’ prompt, today I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that invokes a specific object as a symbol of a particular time, era, or place.