The Pear Tree is taken from a performance of ‘The Pear Tree and other poems’, a poetry and artistic collaboration between Clare Crossman and Victor Manuel Ibanez.
Note: This is not a studio presentation so are some background sounds.
The Pear Tree
For thirty years it signalled spring,
ancient and blossomed, one solitary
pear tree on the 1970’s estate.
Semaphore of beginnings, outrider
of the greenwood behind the village.
First headiness of summer,
it filled my head with light
each time I passed.
Flowers whiter, than plastered walls,
dark juices and roots put down to earth.
From rain spattered bark,
a shimmer of fruit falling
on the pavement in October,
available to anyone who passed.
Cut down to make room for a car:
I put it here, to raise my voice
for the transience of weather.
For Golden Spice, Waterville,
Sauvignac, and Flemish Beauty,
pear teas, petals and enchantment.
The cooks who came for windfalls,
the juice glutted wasps,
the branches in orchards that
shaded doorways with thin sun,
self-seeding and all ragged things.
For what we do not own,
and will never know.
You can see artist Victor Manuel Ibanez’s presentation of The Pear Tree — and other poems by Clare in that sequence — in the first of Clare’s pair of ClimateCultures posts on this artistic collaboration: In the Blackthorn Time. The second post is The Naturalist.
For more of Clare’s readings, see Poem Readings. And you can also find Clare’s readings of her poems for the Waterlight Project at that project’s site.
All poems © Estate of Clare Crossman