Pears

Just three days into autumn
in this forgotten garden
the branches so beast-laden

and heavy with beast-pear
that they bow almost to the ground
offering up a be-jeweled lair

of pear-milk for the deer. Dusky
green, knobbed and knotted sugar
fists, squat, the color of an old tackle box.

Not bin perfections but good
for a hard cider or to cook down
to syrup with chicory leaves and clover

hay. Etched with the rudiments of spark and ash,
each pear a phoenix or a phoenix nest.
Listen to the earth beads in this abacus

for bees. Feel in their crowns and crests,
the steppes and grassland of the Caucasus
Mountains or the multitude of engraved

breasts of an Ephesian Artemis.
The color of an ancient thesaurus
in the back of an old country library

where a widow remembers unearthing
words from her hog butchering days 
and her vows: he was then lifted up and put

on the scaffolded table, his back feet
loosened from the bones so gambrelling
sticks could be placed through an opening.

These mottled green and hard-bottled mineral
songs, teach us the hard-truths and hurt: a hymn
to loving something so generous and good.