Suddenly the memories of the orchard I had robbed one moonlit night in my eight year came flooding back, a magical place watched over by stern owners who knew every kid for miles around plotted, regularly, to rob them of the apples, pears, plums in that glimmering garden. For me it was the quince, dazzling, golden on its black branch. I imagined it back then as a soft, juicy sort of apple. I do know that in the writing of it, I felt the old fear and excitement, heard the strange sounds of the orchard in the dark, and then, the terrible shock of the fruit, bitter on my tongue. The O sounds in the words 'young, moon, tongue' echo the darkness, the longing to taste the forbidden.
Poetry is a revealing of the self to the self.
In 1960 I emigrated to America and like any exile, I constantly looked back, hankering after what is left behind, sometimes forgetting the reasons that made me come here. Of course, the answer was 'no'. Later, I thought of the biblical story of the Prodigal son. I suppose the poem is an answer to that question. I am the Prodigal daughter who 'won't return to my mother's house'.