“A man in a desert can hold absence in his cupped hands knowing it is something that feeds him more than water. There is a plant he knows of near El Taj, whose heart, if one cuts it out, is replaced with a fluid containing herbal goodness. Every morning one can drink the liquid the amount of a missing heart.” —Michael Ondaatje
I have been eating a pomegranate every day for the past two weeks. They are sweet and tart, and feel somehow appropriate now, as if we are all Persephone, getting ready for our sojourn in the underworld. It is pomegranate season, and cut-open pomegranates are displayed in all the fruit stands, arranged atop the massive piles of mottled red and gold. Every morning with my small knife I cut out the crown of the pomegranate and then score along its ridges before pulling the bloody pieces apart. The rind and pith go into one bowl and the seeds collect in another, pushed out of their formations where they hide in gleaming clusters behind the pomegranate’s internal architecture, like the chambers of a heart. There are membranes to peel back, and atria to excavate. The seeds make a satisfying sound when pried from the pith and deposited in the bowl. A rending, a rendering. Something bright at the dark day’s beginning. Every morning there is this short burst of familiar, meticulous work.
This entry was adapted from a five things draft written in December 2020.
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Yes, i've read thd story of Hades and Persephone. Aside from that, we Persians have a celebration at the end of fall named Yalda (Yalda is the longest night in our calendar and also it signifies ths arrival of Lady Winter in our folklore). We celebrate this on Dec 21, which is the end of fall.
The celebration begins when family members gather around and the grandparents start reading sonnets from Hafiz for each family member. Then, they start eating from the Yalda table, which contains a bowl of pomegranates, watermelons, dried nuts and a cake. I love this celebration.
I love the mindful, sensual bloody mess of eating pomegranates, the red stains on fingers crafting this globular fruit into art, the pool of juice that forms on the wooden board, the plink plink of seeds hitting the bowl, the juice bitter and sweet in my mouth, the crunch under my teeth, the way my body feels stronger after eating their iron beads, the way the light shines through these jewels, and the good fortune etched deeply into the roots of the trees that bear them, pomegranates, a word, a fruit, a dream, good tidings and blessings indeed.