Ode to Pears

“Siempre
eres nueva como nada
o nadie
siempre
recién caída
del Paraíso”

Pablo Neruda, "Oda a La Manzana"

Because you only rarely grace
a pie or cake or juice container,
or lend your gold-green flavor
to a gum-drop or jar of jam,
you find no place at the core
of most people's consciousness, crowded
with apples, cherries, oranges or grapes.

But whether hard but penetrable
as life is, green Barlett,
(enrobed sometimes in red)
or the soft surrender
of your ripeness poached in Port
(or better still to let your yellowed lusciousness
pour out by itself, like wine)
who can not sniff out God in your aroma?
Who deny the miracle of the cross

fertilization of what your so dark brown seeds
bare to the earth, that story of eventual fruition,
the glory of the orchard or modest backyard
blessed with pear-shaped promise,
with the very intoxication of hunger
into love. Let the devil keep privileging his apple;
only a demon doesn't desire
the knowledge of a pear.

Joe Benevento teaches creative writing and literature at Truman State University, where he also is poetry editor of GHLL. His chapbook, “Tough Guys Don't Write,” his eighth book of poetry or fiction overall, was just accepted for publication with Finishing Line Press.