Ode to the Lemon

The poem is "Ode to the Lemon" by Pablo Neruda (trans. Margaret Sayers Peden).  The photos are mine - making preserved lemons.

From blossoms

released

by the moonlight,

from an

                     aroma of exasperated                       

love,

steeped in fragrance,

yellowness

drifted from the lemon tree,

and from its plantarium

lemons descended to the earth.

Tender yield!

The coasts,

the markets glowed

with light, with

unrefined gold;

we opened

two halves
of a miracle,
congealed acid
trickled
from the hemispheres
of a star,
the most intense liqueur
of nature,
unique, vivid,
concentrated,
born of the cool, fresh
lemon,
of its fragrant house,
its acid, secret symmetry.

Knives                                                                      

sliced a small 

cathedral

in the lemon,

the concealed apse, opened, 

revealed acid stained glass,
drops
oozed topaz,
altars,
cool architecture.

So, when you hold

the hemisphere

of a cut lemon

above your plate,

you spill

a universe of gold,

a

yellow goblet

of miracles,
a fragrant nipple

of the earth's breast,

a ray of light that was made fruit,

the minute fire of a planet.