Fallen Fruit by Femi Renee

This is a poem which has been one of my favourites. It is by a poet, who (i won't lie) , happens to be my brother. He may not like me saying this, but I believe this is the Caribbeans 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening', yet it is no replica of Frost. It is too grounded in its own private Caribbeanesque mind to be a replica of Frost. As a poem i think it seeks to encapsulate something larger but with the recognizable mundaneness that one is able to relate to with affection, in looking at their human struggle, their human condition, in the euphemism of a poem. The poetry gives them the sort of retrospective calm in looking at that struggle. Set in the Caribbean, its blatantly caribbean image, and the aptness of its subject to the Caribbean dilemma is indeed magical in the modest cathartic explosion it has caused in my heart. Here it goes.

Fallen Fruit

Fallen fruit

Beneath the laden mango trees

Whose leaves do sway astride the breeze

Upon which ants and beetles crawl

And lizards leap among the leaves

From whose dark branches lianas fall

Like columns in the leafy halls

Where cooing doves and sparrows play

On knotted trunks immured in gall

The mangoes in the month of May

Aloft like golden orbs do sway

I cannot climb to claim such fruit

At least that’s what my parents say

I cannot reach such lofty fruit

And so like any common brute

I search about for fallen fruit

I search about, for fallen fruit

By Femi Renee