Occasionally I helped my north Florida former in-laws harvesting cants & watermelons. Mr. Watson always cut the vines himself, even when his 2 sons were of age & knew what to do. When they took over, they paid for outsiders to glean the fields & they pretty much took whatever "looked ready." They hauled them off in big flatbeds, while Mr. Watson sold to individuals who drove up in small trucks--paid in cash--stacking the melons was crucial. Hot, humid memories.
One of my jobs in HS was working at a high end grocery store. It was a pretty miserable gig except for the head produce guy. He ability to select just the right piece of fruit out of the batch bordered on the mystical. Thinking about it now 30+ years later, I can still smell the "good" grapefruit.
I hope you're feeling better. Eating melon is a summer ritual in my family. My husband insists that a ripe melon has a particular sound when you knock on it. I prefer to let the fruit vendor do the choosing. They somehow know if a melon is ripe. I guess you know fruit best if you raise it yourself.
Hope you're feeling better. And a love of a poem. My mother used to smell the stem end in the store--so you're right! My father drove my mother to the store for groceries and waited in the car while she picked out sweet-smelling melons.
Every year I plant cantaloupe and every year it tastes like a skunk smells. By the way, the word cantaloupe always distracts me...loupe? toupe? can't, canta...so much to play with. But it doesn't really sound like a melon to me.
I have had so many disappointments in life, Sherman. With melon, with cantaloupe! I too followed the advice of the masters, as articulated in your poem, then I'd let it sit a few days until I could grab a scent a few feet away. Squeeze just so. Like a QB holding a football. Ready, throw! Damn. I throw an interception. The meat is not sweet. Maybe the melon is out of season. Easier in the summer for sure.
Agree with Terry. Perfect final stanza! A farmer friend described the half intuitive half empirical decision to pick melons as “melon zen.” To which I am still aspiring as a gardener and shopper.
What the heck? I never have to pick out a neon. I buy mine already cut up in a fruit salad from Botino’s. So sweet and the honeydew melon too. So easy. You like everything to be difficult and poetic. I do pick out mangos and guavas. Always delcious. I hate daylight savings time and don’t sleep well.
Occasionally I helped my north Florida former in-laws harvesting cants & watermelons. Mr. Watson always cut the vines himself, even when his 2 sons were of age & knew what to do. When they took over, they paid for outsiders to glean the fields & they pretty much took whatever "looked ready." They hauled them off in big flatbeds, while Mr. Watson sold to individuals who drove up in small trucks--paid in cash--stacking the melons was crucial. Hot, humid memories.
One of my jobs in HS was working at a high end grocery store. It was a pretty miserable gig except for the head produce guy. He ability to select just the right piece of fruit out of the batch bordered on the mystical. Thinking about it now 30+ years later, I can still smell the "good" grapefruit.
I’ve been a bit under the weather, too. Looking forward to the weekend. Great poem, Sherman! I’ll be pondering this as I eat mashed potatoes later...
Enlightenment!
Beautiful. The final stanza hits home. Nails it.
"With sugar in our teeth" spoke to me. Ahhhhh...melons and sweetness...the not-so-ripe ones allow us to enjoy the sublime ones more...Thanks
I hope you're feeling better. Eating melon is a summer ritual in my family. My husband insists that a ripe melon has a particular sound when you knock on it. I prefer to let the fruit vendor do the choosing. They somehow know if a melon is ripe. I guess you know fruit best if you raise it yourself.
Hope you're feeling better. And a love of a poem. My mother used to smell the stem end in the store--so you're right! My father drove my mother to the store for groceries and waited in the car while she picked out sweet-smelling melons.
A great dark-ambient-jazz song title, “interstellar gods
swallowing small planets.”
Every year I plant cantaloupe and every year it tastes like a skunk smells. By the way, the word cantaloupe always distracts me...loupe? toupe? can't, canta...so much to play with. But it doesn't really sound like a melon to me.
I have had so many disappointments in life, Sherman. With melon, with cantaloupe! I too followed the advice of the masters, as articulated in your poem, then I'd let it sit a few days until I could grab a scent a few feet away. Squeeze just so. Like a QB holding a football. Ready, throw! Damn. I throw an interception. The meat is not sweet. Maybe the melon is out of season. Easier in the summer for sure.
Love this delicious combination. Your poem has presence to the finite moment but also the lusty nested awareness that we are in and of universes.
I don't have much " melon zen.". .! ( But love the poem). If we are what we eat, i am a cheese sandwich.
Agree with Terry. Perfect final stanza! A farmer friend described the half intuitive half empirical decision to pick melons as “melon zen.” To which I am still aspiring as a gardener and shopper.
PS. It’s upposed to say melon‼️
What the heck? I never have to pick out a neon. I buy mine already cut up in a fruit salad from Botino’s. So sweet and the honeydew melon too. So easy. You like everything to be difficult and poetic. I do pick out mangos and guavas. Always delcious. I hate daylight savings time and don’t sleep well.