Summer Fruit

For those of us already in the autumn of our lives, if not the winter, it’s understandable that we dwell a bit longer in ripe August with fruit trees heavy
to bending.

Have peaches always been this peachy? Freestone which doesn’t and Cling that does, to say nothing of those white Babcock and the flat Chinese. I had a drippy one just now that T.S. Eliot’s Prufrock dared. I slurped it all over me like a blessing. With their fragrance and fuzz peaches are a full body feast for the senses.

Then there are this year’s plums, red to purple-to-bursting; Satsuma or Santa Rosa. Eat them cold and forbidden like the one William Carlos Williams ate because man is not made for such denial. I buy mine at Costco by the dozen.It becomes a happy race to gobble them before they become prunes. My advice is to start eating when you get on line, then sell them door to door or better yet give them away.

The honeydews are uncommonly honeyed. Watermelons you could dive into and swim through its red sea, pits and all. And tell me if the cantaloupe each morning does not contain the sun.

Gather them while ye may. It, too, shall pass and soon rust and orange will rule the day. Earth will re-assert its tones and call down the leaves in their best amber and golden dress, soon gone to mulch.

Never mind the preservatives and pesticides. I don’t want to hear about the sulfur dioxide additive to enhance the color. Let’s just savor summer for what it yields, its many birth days. Pass the grapes; they were never so fat and firm and succulent. This is a season to cling to, like the peach, to our essence. Enjoy.