The Gospel According to Orange
poem
I often chastise myself for not believing in God. The secular cathedrals that I've built in my brain's cities are still girded by Catholic guilt. Today, as I peeled an orange, as I pulled apart the rind, my poet mind immediately wrote, "O, this fruit—this sweetness born and blessed of seed and root— is protected by the loveliest of armors." Then I thought of my screenplay in progress where a homeless Indian swipes his underarms with orange rinds, hoping that those shards will work as improvised deodorant. "O, this fruit—this sweet scent— that lives beyond intent and enters imagination." And then I sigh at my mortal arrogance. Who am I to think that oranges only happen by chance? Who am I believe that beauty is an accident? Why do I claim that every miracle is only coincidence? I don't have any answers for these questions. I suppose that is a form of faith. I only know this for sure: I happily ate that orange because it was good for my body. And ain't the body part of the soul?
Thank you Sherman for this poem.
When my mom was growing up, her single Christmas present every year was an orange. Her description of the joy she felt when she had that first bite is one of my favorites of her many stories. Now that she is gone, when I eat an orange I try to be for a moment that little girl that she was, consumed by the pleasure of the rare and precious orange. Is her soul not in my body, through the miracle of every orange I eat?
And the cosmos winked with a squirt of juice in its eye.