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Julie Fay

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The Pear Tree

I saved when our neighbor,

the vet who went to 'Nam
to save freedom, came home and found
the least complicated place in America
to live in, here, on this river, a house
whose corners are plumb,
a yard kept in place
by heavy pine timbers
whose every weed he pulls
before it gets out of control,
whose soil he tills to powder
and plants and grows
such bounty his wife can’t can
fast enough, parboiling away
steaming summer afternoons
(the windows weep)
who sprays insecticide everywhere
herbicide that seeps slow as grief into
the estuary, who holds
office on the Save-the-River Committee

had the trees guys come
to yank it out of his yard

15 years’ roots,
and I came running
shouting from my house
(they make such a mess my neighbor’d said,
the grass, bees and muck all over
the half-gone bodies)

which has produced no pears
for eight years and two the ninth,
has this the tenth anniversary of its resurrection
exploded
with two hundred voluptuous
fruit, heavy and hanging limbs
nearly broken, my yard
wild and overgrown, a terrifying eyesore
testifying, decomposing sweet reminders
keening softly
there is only earth’s abundance
we wrap our mouths and memories around.

 

Page(s) 127

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