Silver-grey and yellow lichen,
delicate minute fronds
on gnarled, arthritic boughs

which bear fruit. Unnamed diseases
have blighted it and stunted
its growth for years;

a stooped old man
whose fruits are diminutive
brown-spotted apologies.

Grandad used to say they weren't
worth bothering with. He knew.
He wanted to rip it out

once and for all. Jane
(with the haughty superiority
of a thirteen-year-old)

would not eat them.
Supermarket shelves spawned fruit
in her eyes; anything else

was disgusting and hardly worthy
of recognition. I cut across
the plumpness, through the blemishes;

two five-pointed stars
shine at me. I smile back.
The leprous peel hides pure

white fruit. We wonder if we should,
then take a knife and cut.
I taste the bitter sweetness

and salivate involuntarily. Remember
Grandad's face when he ate
something sharp? We laugh

(and cry, inside, for him). Andrew,
fruit-lover extraordinaire, chomps
happily and goes for more,

revelling in the bitterness.
We shall spend hours in the kitchen,
peeling, chopping, boiling, sweetening,

so we can proclaim, "They're from the tree!"
then maybe brave scatches - attacks
from brambles - so we can gather

wild blackberries and set up
the once white, now crimson-stained
square of muslin, pinned

overnight to the legs
of an unpturned stool.
My tongue tests its taste again;

more thirst-quenching than
a litre of ice-cold mineral water,
mountain fresh. As the juices

begin to flow, so the memories
which blatantly defy time
flood in too. My lovely Dad.