The Orange Poem by Daniel Brick

The girl holds the orange
rolling it from hand
to hand, with a grasp
as light as the transparence
of water. The orange
was ripped from its tree
before its time. Sunlight
it drank still glows
from within its rind
as bright as rain-glossed rocks.

The orange rolls
from careful hand to hand.
In its other life,
it longed to fall,
fulfill itself as fruit,
the sun detaching it
slowly from its branch
the way a snake sheds
her used skin, or rain
washes dust from dirt.

The orange plunges
to the waiting ground,
embraced by handless
grass. A crevice opened
weeks ago to cradle
the round rind
which tightens, then splits.
Seeds spill deeper into
the ever-nurturing earth.
The orange dissolves

into its future, where
the dead become the quick...
The girl breaks the orange's
rind. Its sweet juice
stains her moving hands.
Delicately, she separates
the wedges, and eats them
one by one, seeds, juice,
flesh, and muses, 'Everything
that is cared for is alive.'