Tuesday, March 20, 2007

peeling, drops, mirrors

Pomegranites used to be a chore. Now, at at last, having worked out a way to peel them, I look forward to the job. You cut a pomegranite into quarters and try to follow the demarcations made by the pith. You will find that the fruit-encrusted seeds, each glowing like a ruby, are arranged in "pods" which cling together and are easy to separate without taking with them too much of the pith. It takes time, but the reward is to end up with a bowl full of shining, juicy seeds.

As I walk beneath a gutter, big drops of water overflow and fall at my feet. The sound is "pitter-patter", the sound which rain drops are supposed to make but normally do not, because gnerally they are wafted by the wind, when they seem to whisper, or fall without interruption with a continuous drumming.

There are mirrors everywhere in the sun after the rain. Drops or sheets of water on black railings, tarmac, brick pavements, branches of trees and shrubs, even on leaves waving in the wind, reflect the light. There is a dance going on, mindless, undirected, full of energy.

2 comments:

tristan said...

ah ! the dance ! all that energy !

Lucy said...

Heard a poem on the radio a little while ago by a moslem woman, called 'How to eat a pomagranate', which I haven't got around to looking up. It seems in children's Arabic primers, the word for the fruit is the common one that begins with aleph, rather like 'a is for apple', so that they take on the sense of being the primal fruit.
Lovely post, as ever.