Song of Songs

Let us go early to the vineyards

  to see if the vines have budded,

if their blossoms have opened,

  and if the pomegranates are in bloom --

there I will give you my love.

                                                  Song of Songs 7:12

I've been thinking a lot about pomegranates lately.  The tree in our community garden is hanging low with them and I'd gotten it in my head to make pomegranate jam.  Easier said than done, but I digress...

Long before I ever had ever held one, eaten one, or opened one, I loved pomegranates.  I don't know if it was the melding of the apple green and the garnet red or the little royal decoration at the top that reminded me of Max's crown in WHERE THE WILD THING ARE.  I was drawn to the gem-like seeds which were held like the greatest of treasure by this hardest of hard fruits.   The seeds glistened in paintings or photographs, seeming to me like the deep tones of reds went deeper and deeper into a tiny reflective pool.  I wondered if they tasted sweet or sour.  I wondered, before I knew, if that was even the part one might eat!

I'm not sure if I was drawn to them because pomegranates hold a special place in literature and once a "Lit Major" always a "Lit Major".  They showed up in books and poems representing fertility and beauty and abundance.  Pomegranates will often be eaten at Rosh Hashana dinner as Jewish tradition tells that pomegranates have 613 seeds which correspond to the 613 mitzvohs of the Torah. For them, these powerful fruits are a symbol of righteousness.  Or maybe it was just the exotic nature of them: The secrets that they might hold about far away desert lands.  They seemed forbidden and mysterious - as if they held primal information within them of who we are as people.  And in fact, the trees first grew in Iran and then during ancient times quickly spread to the Himalayan area of India and on to the Middle East, and Greece.  And having traveled in some of those regions and having felt the deep connection to them, to the earth - as if this is indeed where we sprung from - I think perhaps pomegranates actually do hold some secret to our being.

Now, of course, they are almost common place.  You can get them already juiced in your supermarket in the smallest of towns.  Doctors rave about the antioxidant nature of them.  They are being used for political and social maneuverings in Afghanastan to convince farmers to move from growing the lucrative crop of opium to the even more lucrative crop of pomegranates.   I mean have you seen the price of the juice?  Although, having attempted the jam, I have some theories about that.  But, again, I digress...

Ultimately, though, pomegranates are sexy.  When they ripen they gently split open revealing more and more of their plump, fertile, ruby seeds.  The darker, the sweeter.  Hanging open - their jewels to be plucked - they tempt birds and humans alike.   And they show up a lot in the grandest of grandest of literature: the bible.  While some scholars may argue that Song of Songs is a treatise on political dealings and conflict between beliefs and nations, others believe it might have been an early kind of erotic poetry.  But, no matter what the origin, there is our fruit in question front and center to the longing and desire with pomegranate-colored temple blushing and love making under its blossoms.  One can imagine lovers feeding each other the dark, sweet seeds while juices drip down upon their lips.  And maybe I'm just missing some romance in my life right now, but this seems reason enough to love pomegranates.

I would lead you

  and bring you to my mother's house --

I would give you spiced wine to drink,

  the nectar of my pomegranates.

                                                                                        Song of Songs 8:2

 Oh, and the pomegranate jam.  yeah, still taking those damn seeds out of them.  I'll keep you posted.  In the meantime, please check out some photographs I took of the lovely poms from the garden over at www.squidpictures.blogspot.com