AN ORANGE

POETRY WARNING 🚨THE GLORIOUS WEALTH OF FRUIT

Today, I ate an orange
the color of an autumn sky
its sweetness tinged with tang, awry -
the flavour of the sun;

a fruit for ancient nobles
in regal robes of silk and gold
draped thick in jewels manifold,
who fought to eat just one...

a child out picking cotton
starving for a bite to eat,
thirsting for an orange sweet
to eat, but there was none -

the dustbowl dried, then vanished.
That child who left her dirt floor home,
her wandering feet the world to roam,
her years of hunger done -

would bloom into my mother.
That memory was bittersweet;
of longing for one orange, sweet,
beneath a blazing sun...
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  and each time she ate one
           the bitter came undone -
                    her sweetest treasure, won...

...

Today I ate an orange- 
sweet wealth in every one.