A poem by John Updike, "Pear like a Potato"

Pear like a Potato


Was it worms, having once bitten

and then wilted away, or some canker

known only to nurserymen? Whatever the reason, the pear

fresh-plucked from the tree where it leans and struggles

in the garden’s dappled corner, is

a heavy dwarf-head whose faceless face

puckers and frowns around a multitude of old problems, its

furrowed brow and evil squint and pursy mouth

and pinched-in reptilian ear rescrambling,

feature for feature, as I rotate

this weight in my hand, this

friendly knot of fruitflesh, this

pear like a potato.

It wanted to grow, and it did. It

had a shape in mind, and if that shape in transit

was waylaid by scars, by cells

too mean to join in, leaving dents between bulges

like quilt-buttons, well, it kept on going

anyway. Our brains

are like this, no doubt, having swelled

in spite of traumas, of languages

we never learned, of grudges never set aside but grown around,

like parasites that died but forever snapped

the rhythm whereby cell links up to cell.

Plato’s was a manner of speaking;

perfection’s an idea that body and soul

make a run at. Falling short, they fill this world instead

with the lopsided jumble that is: the congregation

of the failed yet not uncheerful,

like this poor pear.



- John Updike