Pearhood

by Brother Placidus Henry

She bends over a garden of photos
on the floor, planting a picture of rose/
pear, smiles to encourage them to seed
our consciousness and grow there,
lengthening the vine of creation.
She thinks about helping her students
to open … to ripen. Recalls a line
from Rumi’s work that makes her stop … wonder …
that impels your own inner rumination.
There are more pears to pick: lemontinted;
pale fruit drizzled in early sunlight;
autumnal pulpy sweetness to taste.
Filled with a yellow spring I know that
everything about her past is present
in her face—yet unread—thresholds, doors, roads.
Her smile is solar; such brightness could banish …
The class mills about looking for answers;
I sit with my notebook, verse lost on tongue.
The class is the stanza, she the poem.