Precious For Some

Precious for some

Is the moment of touch,

The reaching into a brown paper bag

And lifting out a peach.

From what laden boughs

Had it come?

Arriving as it did

Via a roadside perch,

By a plain-Jane girl,

And a  crayoned sign,

“peaches”

Such was…

Waiting for the light.

The approach to the Brooklyn Bridge,

When the driver was offered

Humility and kindness,

Her asking nothing for the peach,

Save the obvious,

The gratuity of a smile

In return for her smile.

Her refusal of a dollar bill

Enjoins today the strange melancholy

Of that day’s roadside innocence.

Precious for some…

To imagine her as part

Of Nature’s  feeling and tenderness,

Coming all the way from an orchard,

To his tasting deeply,

Not only the skin,

The pulp,

But the tree shade,

The rains of nurturing,

Where sweetness was born,

Relayed via a young girl.

A maturity in kind,

Still smiling

As exhaust fumes plumed the air,

Clouding the purity

Of the happenstance

Of a peach,

A brown bag,

A maternal instinct

 Nudging adulthood generously

With love and benevolence.

Was it…

A messenger

From distant travel,

From blossom to blossom

To nurture further blossoms in the often

Resistant humankind?

Perhaps