Everybody thinks this must be easy--hang around, get red,
get round, get redder still. Look closer: we are making
something, growing into future seasons, for the world
will come to an end when there are no more pomegranates.
 
Remember, it only took one little bite, one little spurt of juice
across the tongue, kernel not swallowed but spluttered out
on the dark floor, to keep Persephone down in darkness
the best part of the year, and yet it's juice that drives the spring;
 
its lack brings winter. Without juice, jagged cracks open
in the sun-dried earth, birds fall from the sky, apples turn
to dust, rivers give up, turtles wither, trees sink, and people
lie down alone in their narrow beds and do not find rest.
 
No, wait a minute, that wasn't what I was going to say.
I say the world is full of juice, which explains its excellent shape:
spherical, like so many of the best things, eggs and oranges,
raindrops, cherries, eyes, and pomegranates. Bad things
 
tend to come in boxes. Misery is edged. You can hurt yourself
knocking your knees and shins on the sharp corners of disappointment
as you try to navigate its unlit rooms. Despair is gray. It has a jagged,
spiny surface. Hope is curved, alive and wet inside, and red.
 
 
 
 

North American Review, 291, 6 (November-December 2006): 15.
© 2006 by Kevin Berland