OLIVE PICKING

Working in the olive grove,
Dimitri thinks only of the yield from his old roots,
This knot-knarled tree is one of his favourites,
Years of pruning has coaxed its spreading shape
Into a willow-wide bouquet of boughs,
Laden with bullet-blooms that beg release.

Now, the master stands back and admires
All that nature (with his help) has created,
And before the purging begins,
Silence.

Then, with every thwack of his katsouna,
He urges the fat, cobalt fruit to shower onto
Carefully laid collecting nets.

This hessian pack, unloading onto stone
From the wooden back of unshod Neddy,
Is filled from that great, cracked tree (a good year),
And Dimitri, we see, is pleased
As the press begins to wind, and the screw to crush
The olives.

So the scene with stubborn Herk,
In slow perambulation making work the grind,
Till mushy purple-tinted juice infuses fabric
With virgin-sweet scent,
Ali-Baba jars are brimming full of oil,
And tired Dimitri is content.

Jane Sharp
2004