New Poetry by Linda Stevenson

Lemons

Our lemons were so prolific
we dragged them around
in sacks, I mean potato sacks,
the stitched up ones
with gaping wounds,
smelling of potato digs
and black earth.

Wondrously overstocked
with lemons, we gave them away
by the gross, piled them
out on the nature strip for any takers,
brewed gallons upon heat-wave gallons
of carb soda lemonade,
occasionally spiced with a lime.

I took to climbing, ladder
and branch, loved pulling against
the fruits’ resist, gathering, letting fall,
pitching some towards baskets;
on the ground they piled up,
a harvest, between the silver beet
and carrots.

Now, I own one small tree,
planted in half a barrel; it sits
on concrete in a space I’m pleased
to call “back garden”. It’s doing well,
bore sixteen juice-filled offerings
last season. I’m so proud
of its valiant flowering. 


- Linda Stevenson 2018

Linda is a founding member of Melbourne Poets Union, facilitator of poetry groups in gaols and community centres, contributor to anthologies, recently published in various literary magazines. Chapbook "The Tipping Point" published in 2015, active as a poet within the online poetry sector.