Poetry from Thailand

Original poetry written in and about rural Thailand.

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Location: Chong Khae, Nakhonsawan, Thailand

Saturday, February 11, 2017

The Jackfruit Tree



It a normal looking tree but
its fruit, each one as heavy
as half-grown child has spiny
skin you cannot hold with
ungloved hands, and hangs
not a beauty to the eye but
as an medical abnormality to
the beholder. 

Halve one - if you can - and its
innards present swirls of flesh
and animal gut that makes you
look away as if in an abattoir.

Twice this decade a Jackfruit
has crashed through my roof
as if to say there would have
been no damage friend if your
roof hadn’t been there.

Compare apples to oranges,
if you must, but you will never
know this Asian land without
eating the fruit of the jackfruit
tree.



FG       2/12/2017



A jackfruit can weigh as much as 80 lbs.  It looks like durian, but experts say they are not closely related.  When I first came to Thailand I was amazed by the variety of weird Asian fruit I had never seen before.  The jackfruit is one of the weirdest.  I’ll probably never get hit by a meteorite or space junk, but the odds of getting hit by a jackfruit are a lot better.  Chunky’s mother sells a jack fruit for $4 or so.  I wonder if I could get a guy to fix the roof and pay him in jackfruit?