These Trees (Inspo by Strange Fruit)
By Saniya Laners
The fruit on these trees
doesn’t come from those leaves
It’s all-year blossoms don’t get pollen
from those black and yellow bees
The fruit on these trees
Started out just as seeds
Grew into our brothers, our sisters
A bloom of brown, yellow, red
and evergreen
Those fruits that began as just seeds
Seeds that longed to feel
The warmth, the liberty of the sun
Seeds that when sundown came
Shriveled up and were made to fade away
Searched hastily for each exit
Out of city limits
Forced from their roots
under duress
fruit of golden bones and soft dark flesh
fruit never to be laid to rest
fruit dressed in his Sunday best
fruit that hustled just to count an extra comma
fruit who wouldn’t make it back to momma
fruit whose dinner was left cold at the table
fruit lost in a world that didn’t want to see him be greater
fruit unplucked and left to die
Death ruled as a troubled man’s suicide
the fruit on these trees
swings slow in the summer’s breeze
harrowing songs
sung in a minor key
a fruit that once loved
a fruit that now bleeds
a fruit who ran
a fruit that pleads
dreams deferred
now shattered
black bodies throughout these trees
are scattered
these trees, this fruit
each bear a different story
each reap the same agonizing truth
complexion, perception
are enough to kill you
black fruit is beauty
and black fruit is pure
of this fact, I am never unsure
yet, all the while,
it could have very well been me
a rotting piece of fruit
among a poplar tree
,
Robert Morales, Grade 12