Essay On Fecundity Poem by Roger Gerald Hicks

Two winters in the recent past
my saw sheared nectarine to trunk,
to bare the sun and spare
the patio mess from rotting seed.

Tree, however, (maybe thirty-five)
refused to surrender leaf and life
stretched new limbs in February.
Pink blossoms in April grew
the sweetest fruit- just six.

This March found her so fertile
supple branches bowed with fruit-
some drooped to sun-walled earth
their unripened seed-
remained hard and bitter-
ignored even by sparrows.

Unpruned, those sun-walled branches
will:
bloom and bear
bloom and bear
bloom and bear
like ghetto teenagers.