Clementine Poem

I miss the clementine days:

bright and light and little.

No pain in peeling, no struggle in segmenting

each separate slice of life.

Those days, paired always with a citrus taste,

faint and quaint and yet fair,

were properly proportionate, if you please -

for all fit.

All the puzzle’s pieces were put

together perfectly, forming a picture of

sweetness supposedly perpetual.

I am now in the mush and mash of mealy months,

days mangled and mangy.

But no matter:

I believe

I will taste the clementine days

of childhood anew,

as You say,

when I hand over my hunger to You,

and, born again into innocence,

bear fruit.