Christa Pandey  

Concentration

                                               

A loquat seed I kept some years ago,
the yellow globe sucked off like candy,
I planted, curious if it would grow.

The seed in its one-minded aim
grew in a pot, though what it did
until some green appeared
I only guess. Its energy forced
seed to open, shape a sprout, which
one fine day I spotted after weeks
of anxious ogling: a dainty stem,
a newborn leaf. With sunlight, rain,
more leaves grew into dark serrated
green while fuzzy grayish underneath.

The curious sprout grew inch by inch
until the pot was like a cheap hotel.
In native soil of rocks, caliche, minerals
the plant took off, its purpose to
become a tree, not any tree, not weed
or plum or peach, but loquat,
flowering in fall and waiting for (no stanza break)
late bees to hang around the basil,
aster, rosemary to take excursions
to the clustered whites and feed the push
for procreation. Without much frost
green teardrop fruits of early spring
are ripening to golden globes in May.

 

Concentration first appeared in the chapbook “Hummingbird Wings” (Create Space 2013)

 

 

 

Christa Pandey is a widely published Austin poet, whose work has
appeared in numerous anthologies and journals. Her more spiritual work
can be found in her three chapbooks: Southern Seasons, Maya, and
Hummingbird Wings.