Monday, November 28, 2005


HYPERPERSIMMONOSIS


On our walk through the woods today, after I'd picked and inadequately peeled some genuinely wild persimmons and as a result had my mouth pucker as though I'd used an alum mouthwash (those really wild persimmons are so astringent you have to peel ¼ inch off to be able to eat the little that's left, as I now know). My mouth was so astringified that it was difficult to carry on a fluid conversation, so it was something of a convenient miracle to come upon the perfect forest antidote for extreme hyperpersimmonosis: a whole stone outcropping covered in the dark green leaves and gleaming red berries of fully ripe ki-ichigo (cloudberries; lit: tree strawberries). My mouth trying vainly to water at the sight, I broke off some long sections of the thin, berry-laden vines and carried them along like a fistful of ruby necklaces as I slowly picked off and ate the rubies, thereby restoring the liquidity of my loquacity.

5 comments:

Tabor said...

Stop it! Stop it! "Liquidity of my loquacity." My head is starting to hurt, you poet you.

Robert Brady said...

Once those cloudberries set my tongue free, there was just no stopping it. I'm better now though, got it under control, goin' colloquial, no problem. Total chill.

Anonymous said...

Coincidence. I found those for the first time yesterday, and now by reading Pure Land Mountain I know the name. I was on a looong hike up over Mt. Daimonji and then down to the hidokoro where they light the big kanji fire every Aug. 16. As I refilled my water bottle from a mountain stream, my hiking companion happened to notice the groundcover brambles with these tiny berries. I thought they would be sour, but they were indeed sweet.

Anonymous said...

I wonder if eating loquats will triple one's loquacity...
T.

Robert Brady said...

Pleased to be of some service, Nils...

T, if the deer don't eat my loquats this winter/spring, I'll do a study on that...