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May 1, 2002

For May Day, I Will Give My Love a Cherry

Today is for the flower, and not the fruit.
There is an old seduction song, in riddle form, that begs a cherry without a stone.
No seed but once a flower was; the joke is in continuing to know these things as one.
On May Day do not look away, at changes done and change to come,
For the cherry of the moment is the flower not the stone.
No flesh of fruit, no sustenance; a breath drawn in, but not blown out.
Seduce me with a flower, and feed me on the Sun;
We shall not ask a taste of fruit beyond the act of love.
Or so we say on May Day, heedless; easy; all undone.
We live by fruit; we love by bloom.
Bloom, May!
And then the stone.

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