Endless Fruit
When I was almost full grown,
my parents handed me
a knife blade-first
so that I could fight in the holy war
against what they feared
I might be.
Now that the fighting has calmed over the years
to a few skirmishes here and there,
and the wound on my palm
has finally been left alone
long enough to heal,
I’ve been trying to settle back into civilian life.
I keep people at a safe distance for now,
I am learning to trust
that I have mastered survival,
I busy my hands
in the solitude of the orchard
keeping branches from splitting
by cutting them down to size
before they become overloaded with fruit.
When my hand is too sore
to cut any more branches,
I cover the blade in leather
that smells of burnt tobacco,
I am learning to be gentle
with the purple scar
in the palm of my hand
as if guarding a small ripe plum
I am saving for myself.
Loneliness is like summer that way–
endless
fruit snapping off branches
when it is time to be consumed,
for its seed to be borne
across new acres
where it may grow again.
Lionel A. Newman is a Thai-American poet, former Buddhist monk, and PhD student in neuroscience at the University of Groningen. Originally from Chicago and recently returning from a decade in the Netherlands, he has performed his poetry at various live Dutch events including the Poets in the Prinsentuin festival and touring with Random Collision Dance Company performing improvised poetry. Lionel is emerging as a publishing poet with work appearing in Hot Pot Magazine. He is a member of the Amsterdam-based Strange Birds writers’ collective and the Groningen Poetry Stanza.
The Marbled Sigh 