Learning Patience From A Pomegranate Poem by Sonny Rainshine

You cannot appreciate pomegranates
without patience. First wait for the red
crepe-papery blooms to announce
the coming of the fruit by signaling
and then shimmying out of the star-like
hands that cupped them, then let them go.

It will be months before the fleshy buttons
begin to plump and inflate,
green balloons tinged with the same crimson
of the blossoms now decaying on the ground below.

You’ll know when the time has come
at last to pluck them from their stems,
conduits to the earth that fed them
so that they can now feed you.

You’ll know because they begin to crack open,
breaking apart like fissures in the rocks
after an earthquake. Through the thin cleft
an entirely different shade of red,
pomegranate-red is revealed.

You’ll place the appleish ball
on your cutting board and glare at it
at first, perplexed, worried, wondering
if it’s worth the consternation.
“Perhaps I’ll just write about it.”
you say, unconvinced.

In a quick moment of decisiveness
you snatch the angry red sphere,
looking like a miniature of planet Mars,
and pull each side with passion.

A few roseate seeds escape
and clatter on the board like
liquefied rubies; hundreds more
of these edible jewels
cling to the pieces of hull
eliciting still more apprehension.

You gingerly peel off a single seed,
place it into your mouth,
chew and expel the inedible pit,
repeating the ritual until
in a panic, you tear off a dozen at once
and chew and expel, expel and chew.

Changed forever, now,
from a being who had never grown
a pomegranate and never had the tenacity
to eat one all the way through,
you fumble to the wooden bowl
on the dining room table,
reach in, and peel a banana.