MY HEART, LIKE A POMEGRANATE

“Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams.” - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I have had a very busy day today with meetings, individual telephone calls, conference calls, scores of emails and much proof-reading to do. Although I was in at work at 7:00 am and kept going without break until 5:00 pm, I still had a mountain of unfinished business on my desk. But, that was it, I’d had enough and decided to leave it all – tomorrow is another day…

A poem from my old notebook today, speaking of the trials and tribulations of young love. Pomegranates figure prominently in Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern lore and traditions both as symbols as well as an essential item of the diet. The pomegranate is symbol of both life and death, hope and fortune, as well as symbol of loss and deception.

The Pomegranate Tree

My heart a pomegranate fruit,
Cracked open wide,
Bleeding blood, drop by drop,
As each grain of fruit’s released.
A drop that falls, transforms
Into a blood-red anemone in my hand.

I kiss the flower and give it you,
And you accept it absently.
You pluck each petal nonchalantly,
And I stumble on each of your “loves me nots”.
Each petal flies away to become a moth
That loses itself in the shadows,
Like my hopes that flee at night:
Bluebirds vanishing high up.

My love under its greenwood veil,
Hides within a fresh, living leaf,
Which under autumn skies ages,
Yellows, withers, falls…
Falls like the sea-salty tears
From my eyes that water
With toxic drops
My single-fruiting
Pomegranate tree.