(My homeboy “Stevie Ray” guarding the tangerines. – LK Thayer)
“The playwright Edward Albee has characterized [the suddenness of the appearance of fruits and flowers in evolutionary history] as ‘that heartbreaking second when it all got together: the sugars and the acids and the ultraviolets, and the next thing you knew there were tangerines and string quartets.”
― Adam Leith Gollner, The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce, and Obsession
Fruit of life – by Frida Kahlo
“BEWARE OF THOSE
Beware of those who are bitter,
For they will never allow you
To enjoy your fruit.
Beware of those who criticize you
When you deserve some praise for an achievement,
For they secretly desire to be worshiped.
Beware of those who are needy or stingy,
For they would rather sting you
Than give you anything.
Beware of those who are always hungry,
For they will feed you to the wolves
Just to get paid.
Beware of those who speak negatively
About everything and everybody,
For a negative person will never say
A positive thing about you.
Beware of those who are bored
And not passionate about life,
For they will bore you with reasons
For not living.
Beware of those who are too focused with
Polishing and beautifying their outer shells,
For they lack true substance to understand
That genuine beauty is in the heart
That resides inside.
Beware of those who step in the path of your dreams,
For they only dream to have the ability
To take half your steps.
Beware of those who steer you away
From your heart’s true happiness,
For it would make them happy to see you
Steer yourself next to them,
Sitting with both your hearts bitter.
Those who are critical don’t like being criticized,
And those who are insensitive have a deficiency in their senses.
And finally,
Beware of those who tell you to BEWARE.
They are too aware of everything –
And live alone, scared.”
Poetry by Suzy Kassem
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
“Don’t be ashamed to weep; ’tis right to grieve. Tears are only water, and flowers, trees, and fruit cannot grow without water. But there must be sunlight also. A wounded heart will heal in time, and when it does, the memory and love of our lost ones is sealed inside to comfort us.”
― Brian Jacques
“It is not all bad, this getting old, ripening. After the fruit has got its growth it should juice up and mellow. God forbid I should live long enough to ferment and rot and fall to the ground in a squash.”
-Josh Billings
Photo by L.K. Thayer
“The seasonal urge is strong in poets. Milton wrote chiefly in winter. Keats looked for spring to wake him up (as it did in the miraculous months of April and May, 1819). Burns chose autumn. Longfellow liked the month of September. Shelley flourished in the hot months. Some poets, like Wordsworth, have gone outdoors to work. Others, like Auden, keep to the curtained room. Schiller needed the smell of rotten apples about him to make a poem. Tennyson and Walter de la Mare had to smoke. Auden drinks lots of tea, Spender coffee; Hart Crane drank alcohol. Pope, Byron, and William Morris were creative late at night. And so it goes.”
― Helen Bevington
Wishing you all a happy fruity new year from over the pond……. ~ Cheers ~……….. Mitch
“If we spend the time we waste in sighing
for the perfect golden fruit
in fulfilling the conditions of its growth,
happiness will come, must come.
It is guaranteed in the very laws of the universe.
If it involves some chastening and renunciation, well,
the fruit will be all the sweeter for this touch of holiness.”
– Helen Keller
“Envy, like the worm, never runs but to the fairest fruit;
like a cunning bloodhound, it singles out the fattest deer in the flock.”
“And how should a beautiful, ignorant stream of water know it heads for an early release – out across the desert, running toward the Gulf, below sea level, to murmur its lullaby, and see the Imperial Valley rise out of burning sand with cotton blossoms, wheat, watermelons, roses, how should it know?”
– fruit quote by Carl Sandburg
