Ode to the Watermelon.

I'm always eager to try something different; this time it's Proper Poetry, In other words, I've been creative and added a few 'thees' and 'thous' to this account, to make myself a bit Keatish or Wordsworthian!

ODE TO THE WATERMELON

Oh succulent watermelon, meanderer that thou art!

Watery world-wanderer, ye of the drip-juiced heart!

Born on the plains of Africa, destined to us beguile,

Ravishing with thy richness and thy slices of pink smile!

Oh wondrous watermelon, with mysterous genesis!

Staining the chins of dark-skinned boys with moist and merry bliss.
*

Thine was a hidden history till Livingstone espied

Flauntings of fragrant fleshiness the River Nile beside.

Citrullus vulgaris rampantly revealed

Growing wild and wonderful in profusion, field on field!

A valiant, vibrant vegetable masquerading as a fruit

Bounding o'er the landscape with leaf and twining shoot.
*

The Explorer stood and marvelled at the feast before his eyes!

Rotund and ripe and ravishing in thy green and glorious guise!

Now was revealed the ancestor of a gift that, from the first,

Had nurtured all pre-history and slaked the ancient thirst.

From Arabia to India wast thou held in high esteem,

As nature's great munificence, refreshing as a stream.
*

You sustained the desert travellers as across the dunes they marched;

Succour to faint and famished; panacea to the parched.

In Russia revellers rejoiced in wine made from thy flesh

And thy reputation was enhanced from Bombay to Bangladesh.

How many weary travellers have paused to give thee thanks,

Beneath the trees , upon the hills or on the river banks?
*

But thy journeyings were not over, thy meanderings not done;

Thy conquest of America had only just begun!

Father Marquet, in Mississippi, declared thy flesh divine

And the Indian tribes were grateful for refreshment such as thine.

And, down the ages, year on year, mankind has owed a debt

To the wondrous watermelon that brings us comfort yet.
*

But what is this? This travesty? This modern machination?

This gilding of a perfect lily, sad abomination?

Can it be true thy glorious globes have lost their noble shape?

That, in Japan, technology has wreaked a wicked jape?

Fie upon their bunsen burners and twisted tweaking ways!

Fie upon the scientists and each creative craze!
*

Angular as boxes thy fruits lie row on row,

The ones above identical to those that lie below.

Thy taste, they tell us, is the same, thy qualities unmarred!

'Round' they say 'Was awkward and packing was too hard!'

Like childrens' blocks they store and stack the harvest on the shelves.

Surely they must mourn the loss of rotund shapes themselves!
*

No! They think not of thy portions, once lovingly contemplated!

They think not of the happy smiles by thy 'smiles' recreated!

They think not of thy bounty and the mouth of the dark-skinned boy;

Teeth and seeds united in an arc of the purest joy.

Watermelon! Cease thy progress! Retain thy ancient worth!

As a redolent reminder of the richness of the earth