! The Ripe Pear Poem by Michael Shepherd

Quartering this ripe pear
- a knife-and-fork job; it gave little away
except a slight softness around the stalk,
yet seems to contain more juice than
any work of man could hold -

quartering this ripe pear,
I'm caught up in wonder:
this is almost too good for human beings -
it should have a religion built around its praise;

as if it wishes to tell us something
that we might have overlooked
about such mouth-worn phrases as
Nature's bounty and God's grace..

or as if, two thousand years ago,
it had leaned, heavy on its branch,
from the wall of Plato's leafy Academy,
saw him writing of ideals,
and smiled;

and now I've written that,
I can eat this pear,
tasting it and what I've written;

this pear, I swear,
now tastes even better;
as if I had submitted
on some altar, to be consumed by praise;
praise that tastes of pear; pear that tastes of praise.