A Poem by Kristi Ellis Witt

How I Slice It

The pears on my counter are blushing, ripening.
Picking one up, I imagine their journey and all the hands 
that cradled them before they made their way here

They were grown, quite likely, nearby in Kelseyville—
lauded as the pear capital of the world
But unless I venture from Kelseyville’s Main Street 
I won’t see thriving pear orchards planted generations ago
I won’t see beyond the fruits’ alluring shapes and colors…

The delivery truck driver who unloaded 
an impressive haul of pears at the grocery store 
produce department employees who unpacked 
arranged an inviting selection

Pear sheds where thousands of these stemmed jewels 
were sorted, packed, readied for shipping

Hands efficiently plucked one after another, row after row 
farmers, laborers who nurtured, tended each tree
families whose toil preceded tractors
who married pear seeds and saplings to rich soil

I consider further back still, centuries and millennia 
the earliest stewards of these lands…

In a day or two I will savor and share 
these pears I didn’t grow.