“Carol’s Peaches” (photo by Carol Simanton)
Canning Peaches
In these dark days
I feel the insatiable need
to can peaches,
summer’s light carried in a jar.
Never mind that summer is over,
and the grocery store produce department
has moved onto apples.
There are sure to be a few peaches
still in the bin,
trickling north in trucks from Georgia
for those of us who can’t let summer
succumb to winter’s icy grip;
those of us who,
come the shortest day of the year,
will go down to the cellar
and bring up a jar of peaches.
And then,
in a liturgy of light,
will hold that jar up to the setting sun
(at 4:00 in the afternoon),
give thanks,
open the jar,
and take into our mouths
the golden sweetness of summer
in a defiance of darkness
no different than singing “alleluias”
at the grave.
Which means that today,
despite the thousand things
on my to-do list;
despite the scarcity of peaches
in the grocery store produce department;
despite the hunting I will have to do
in the barn in order to unearth
the canning jars,
I must can peaches
for the sake of holding onto hope,
for the sake of the light
that even now is fading,
for the sake of love
that knows no other way
of making itself known
than through the reach and breach
of limbs and peaches;
the feel of skin on skin,
the breaking open,
the letting go -
the fruit of summer sun
once saturated with light,
sliced to the seed,
slipped into jars,
stored in the dark,
where it waits
to be received,
conceived,
in the late
and waning light
of a winter’s afternoon.
Elaine Hewes