F = Gm₁m₂

       __________

              d²

Among the big things of life are tree-ripened fruits –

not too high up, mind, requiring a ladder or a pole,

but within tiptoe reach,

sagging silently from a nest of leaves

as if to prove the product of G, their mass and the earth’s

should be divided by the square of the distance between them:

the stalk’s snap will prove the formula,

so let’s snap it, snap it, snap it off.

But, before raping the fruit of its sweetness,

hold it in your hand,

fix its colour – the yellow of apricot,

purple of damson, red of plum

and the soft blush of the peach;

fix it in your now and in your then

because both will soon be erased

like prints in the sand when the tide rolls in.

Above all, feel the weight,

the very gravity of life,

its heavy promise in your palm.

Your teeth meet in lukewarm succulence

and you know there’s nothing

more beautiful than this in life –

not the ignis fatuus of dreams,

not adventures, foreign or personal,

nor the ringing of the eucharist bell

or the dominoes-bridges of intellectual argument,

not even the caustic command of hatred and war

(thou shalt hate thy neighbour as thyself),

nor the Croesus lament as gold turns into excrement.

Fruits are among the big things of life. Enjoy them!