The Ballade of the Frum Pear

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Leo Aylen

The Ballade of the Frum Pear

 

          There’s an old Gloucestershire word “frum” for the brief moment—only an hour or so—when a pear is perfectly ripe, after which the pear becomes first “mawsy,” then “sappy,” then “roxy,” and finally, “rotten.”

      Come into my garden. It’s humming with bees.
      It’ll soothe your eyes that are prickly from glare.
      Forget your checkbook, papers, and keys;
      Take a deep breath of lime-tree air.
      Peer at the larvae in the water butt,
      Look at the robin’s cheeky stare.
      I’ll crack you my one ripe hazelnut.
      I’ll pick you my one frum William pear.
      . . .
      . . . . . . .
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