Poem by Richard Maslen:
The Fig Tree

The Fig Tree

There is
Some Dionysian connection
Here beneath the tree.
Its leathery leaves
Late this year.
Large enough now
To cover Adam's endowment,
Eve's mounting embarrassment.
The green roughness
Raising awareness
Of new fleshly delights.
Skin abraded gently
And not without pleasure.

There is a coolness here.
Hard by the house,
A shadowed sussurus
Making no impression
On the bricks.

Planted close to the wall,
Its tap root
Deep in the sandy earth,
Probing the moisture
Held in some cistern,
Filled with rain
And occasional flooding
From the river.
Whose saltiness
Silvering the trunk,
Drops the fruit
Before their time.
Allowing us the shade
In lieu.

The presence of the God is here
Under the leaves' green beneficence
A cool umbra over us all,
As we lift the wine
On Summer evenings,
Before we drink
And know his scented breath.

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