2021-09-03
by
Eleanor Goldfield
low hanging fruit is all relative
to the birds,
playfully mocking my earth-bound choreography
it's all low hanging fruit
to the squirrel,
contemplating my comparatively lumbering footwork
it's almost all low hanging fruit
to the snail
snugly eyeing the tall grass for signs of fallen apples
there is no hanging fruit
the derogatory swagger of that phrase
low hanging fruit
a hackneyed capitalist hack -
a catch all -
all the fruit
all the toil
all the struggle
to risk ones life for a bushel of apples
that is success
to leave a barren tree -
where no other animals might feed
that is triumph
I balance on two jagged rocks
my pregnant belly forcing a new focus on balance
a feeling I haven't felt shake my legs since infanthood
fitting
the apple tree
ripe and pregnant
stands ready for an autumn feast
I reach and climb and shake, adjust and do it again
I feel frustrated scanning the plump red to green gradient,
the instagram cliché of apples hanging far above me
and I
weighted down by my own ripening fruit
can't climb any further to reach them
I land with a thud in the grass -
a retreating slither flicks my blinders
narrow, hypocritical
I am more than the fruit I bear -
Even I am an entire ecosystem of life -
a self amongst others that are me
and I'm not alone
I look up and see birds returning to their breakfast
atop lichen brushed branches
down to the mushrooms cozying to roots
to the life I can't see, but feel
in the dented apples still twirling on their stems
in the softened brown bowls nestled in the grass
I look at my bag – filled with apples
and step back
no more low hanging fruit
just crown fruit and ground fruit
What was for me, I've picked
the capitalist paradigm is not practiced here
nothing is wasted
precisely because it is left
precisely because it is shared
low hanging fruit
it's all relative
they're all relative