Five Poems from ‘The Plum Tree’ by Endre Ruset
First published in NY POESI for Maintenant series (3:AM)
1 Plum Tree
Mine was a mother
of the malevolent variety. I was born
when she planted a tree from a cherry. It died
the day I forced my hand between Constance’s thighs.
She gave a small cry and went limp. My tree
was hollow and smelled a bit damp. My mother
was thin enough to climb inside. She stood
in the hollow as I played in the garden. I saw her hand
hanging among the low branches. I felt her eyes
looking from the tangled dead twigs. Wild pigs
chased me all over the garden. I was too
quick and clever for them. I climbed
my mother’s tree, the one her father grew
from a fruit stone. The wild pigs
grunted and dug at the roots. My mother
wouldn’t come out of the cherry bush. Her hand
went stiff in the rotting foliage. I plucked
obscenely bulging plums from her branches.
Their pink flesh tasted of Constance.
Their clear juice was sour
and stuck to my palms.
2 Interrogating the Plum
i
First pinch the skin until it splits
and pulp seeps through the slit
put your mouth to it and suck
until the skin turns inside out
and the stone deposits its gift
in a shape difficult to crack
with something written inside
which for an obvious reason
you are not permitted to see
ii
Imagine the plum’s surprise
unzip its lustrous wallet
to an egg of greenish meat
into which category
of experience does this fit
like a tree inspecting a leaf
I held my hand at arm’s length
then sucked it back
to stroke with breath
the place the wet fruit sat
turning its scent bad
now I was learning something
3 From Brecht
the plum tree meanwhile is said
to stand for love and even if
it bears no fruit may be
identified by leaf
4 A Plum Tree Embarrasses My Mother
She wants cold plums from the fridge
plum tarts plum jam and plum cake
each spring the blossoms promise this
but when they yellow and fall the tree
stands hunched like an awkward girl
made to show everyone her underwear
and her green buds tense on the twigs
offering sour fruit that never ripens.
5 Plum Blossom Poem
I read that for the Chinese poets
the plum blossom which is white
and has almost no scent can
depending on its context be said
to represent solitude nobility
winter a quiet beauty a princess
woke when a plum blossom
settled on her forehead starting
the trend of the plum blossom
ornament it also has associations
of displacement and exile
the poet of the plum blossoms
studied the book of changes
until smashing in frustration
his porcelain pillow which
turned out to contain a note
correctly predicting his actions
on that precise date much later
he founded a complex system
of numerological divination
and his poem is a prophecy
from which one locates a symbol
in the outside world and also
in the heart it embarrasses me
as much as the fortune cookie
on my desk I am about to open wait
Worldly affairs are like a chess game,
whose final phase arrives early.
The windstorm continues through the night,
but there is no need to worry.
