Draft in the author’s style. This poem was written for Poet of Blossom to sit beside the author’s own readings, and is waiting for the author’s review. The commentary is a working draft too.
It happened in the market where the oranges gleamed like gold,
When your laughter through the stalls rang out so sweet and bold.
I was counting out my coins for a basket of ripe plums,
Then lost the count completely as my heart began its drums.
You turned and caught me staring, and you smiled without a word,
And every noisy hawker's cry was suddenly unheard.
I bought the plums I did not need and carried them all day,
For they were the only proof that you had passed along my way.
Some say that love takes seasons to be certain and to grow,
But mine arrived in a single glance, and I was sure to know.
Poet of Blossom · Hear it on the channel ↗
Commentary
This poem freezes the first second of a love story. A crowded market and a basket of plums become the setting where a glance changes a life.
The meeting happens “in the market where the oranges gleamed like gold.” The speaker is “counting out my coins for a basket of ripe plums” when a laugh rings out “so sweet and bold,” and the count is lost “as my heart began its drums.”
The stranger “smiled without a word,” and “every noisy hawker’s cry was suddenly unheard.” The speaker carries the plums home, “the only proof that you had passed along my way,” and ends by saying that love “arrived in a single glance.”