Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Buy three or four big oranges, he began.
carry them home as though they were eggs,
and place them on a window ledge.

Then note, he continued, how the tension
between wishing to see objects afresh
and their refusal to yield
is caused by the eyes’ too quick perception
which with faulty sharpness
overlook and misperceive.
So don’t rush, my son. Relax your sight.

Allow time to focus, he went on.
Note how their puffed skins
are bursting with life.
Note their tremendous weight;
an effortless density.

Note how at ease they sit
while you fidget and blink,
incapable of anything more accurate
than a fleeting vision.

In truth your eyes are too slow,
he lamented. Too elementary
and untrained to catch each time
their carbunculous forms;
each uniquely irregular.

There are no straight lines in Nature,
he pronounced. No dealing
in geometrical exactness.
Only man constructs the world
with mathematical precision.

After a long, steady-gazing silence,
he spoke up again. Note also
how in their partial eclipses of each other
the shadows remain definably independent.

Note the way they bend towards you,
swelling up to your sight
which rolls away and dissolves;
confounded.

Now note the mystery
of the impoverished void behind them.
The shiny windows where light lands most.
The gnarled, porous surface and mist-fine zest
the skin exhales when you scratch it.

Note the colours.
Not orange, but reds whites greens
greys browns and blacks.
Orange doesn’t live alone.

He smiled. And if you see this,
note how it all changes
with every minuscule shift of the eye,
every fractioned-second of altering light,
every barely perceptible repositioning.

And don’t forget the stalks and leaves,
he added. They will need a few more days.

So remember, his last words,
if you feel bored or blinded by life,
look at some fruit.