The Scent of a Fig Tree

Fig tree

I will miss your scent

In the unaccustomed heat

Of southern summer’s dawn

Your Eden gathered leaf

Of modest covering

Most apt to suit

My nakedness

In the shuttered morning

Of the wide thrown open day

A gallery of departing swallows

Chitter on the wire

Then on a moment

Peppering the air

In their flickered flight

Then back again

To peck and preen once more

Fig tree

I will miss

Your rounded succulence of flesh

All summer’s sweetness on your breath

When like the swallow

I take flight

Across the open sea

And so depart.

6 Sept 2011  JL