The Lemon Trees Poem by Charles Jenkins

Listen to me. The poets laureate
Move in a world of plants with arcane names
Boxwoods and privets, and acanthuses
But as for me, I like the little lanes
That lead to grassy ditches, spots where boys
Might capture writhing eels in muddy pools,
The paths that wind around the terraces,
And then descend past clumps of sugar cane
Into a garden filled with lemon trees.

It's better if the raucous cries of birds
Exhaust themselves and, swallowed by the sky,
Allow the gentle murmur of an air
That barely moves among the friendly boughs
To let itself be heard, so fragrances
Close to the earth, that come like gentle rain
Bringing sweet comfort to a troubled breast
Can still the troubled passions of the heart.
Thus even we poor souls can have our share
Of riches in the scent of lemon trees.

You know, there are these silences when things
Give up themselves and seem about to yield
Their deepest secrets. Then one half expects
To find a flaw in Nature's mystery
The world's dead mark, the link that will not hold,
The thread that might just lead us to the truth
If only we could disentangle it.
You look around. Your mind seeks harmony.
You make connections and they fall apart
In the rich perfume of the languid day.
And there are silences in which one sees
As every human shadow draws away
A trace of some disturbed Divinity.

But the illusion fades and we return
In time, to crowded cities where the sky
Is only seen in glimpses, far away
Above the rooftops, through the driving rain.
The earth grows tired. Dull winter presses down
Upon the houses. Light is miserly
And weary rancour weighs upon the soul.
Until one day, through a half-open door
Among the shrubs within a little yard
You see the yellow of the lemon trees.
And then the ice-bound heart begins to thaw
As songs of summer pour into your breast
Played by the golden trumpets of the sun.