Sunday, November 27, 2005


THE TASTE OF CRIMSON TO THE EYES


Yesterday afternoon, after I had eaten a fully ripe wild persimmon (very messy) over the kitchen sink while admiring the brilliant crimson-haloed yellow-orange coloring of the momiji (Japanese maple) at the end of our garden, I switched to my second fruit snack, half a French pear that was lying there ready at hand. That's when I entered a new multireality.

My mind's mind was lost in the beauty of the maple as my mouth's mind was dwelling on the lingering deliciousness of wild persimmon, while my hand's mind was grasping what felt exactly like the usual piece of apple it was bringing to my unattended, persimmon-flavored mouth, which was now expecting (via hand-message) the taste of an apple that (according to nose-message) bore the distinct scent of pear as my mind's mind remained on vacation, drifting through the sunlit cloud of momiji leaves and sliding down the color rainbow as corporeal me took a bite of persimmonapplepearmomiji and there was confusion among the tangy leaves and dayglo flavors, an odd and inexplicable discord among abruptly dissociated senses, a surreal medley of mind that had to do with the taste of crimson to the eyes - or maybe the mouthfeel of momiji leaves to the hand- or was it the peary scent of apple with the heft of yellow, all tangled up together in a what, a body is it, of some sort, wait - let me (who's that?) get this sensual knot undone –

It's not maple, well it is, but that's only eyes. This is hand, eyes turn to hand, let mouth sort things out. Not apple, not momiji. Hurry-tasting mouth plunges off cliff of persimmon sweetness, seeking radically different flavor level so as to enable resumption of standard existence oddly called Bob, finally stopping at new sharp tartness, broadening out, parsing… ahhh: pear! I know pear! Delicious! Pear and tongue old friends! Like eye and momiji leaf!

Then came the momiji-watching pearmouth party, with reassembled me in full attendance.

4 comments:

Tabor said...

And all of this without any help from Timothy Leary!

Val said...

Wonderful description! And most people would never have noticed any of it.

Anna said...

How utterly sensuous - and perceptive. I've never tasted a persimmon, but now I have an idea of it.

Anonymous said...

Persimmons do send me off to seventh heaven - I never notice anything else when I'm in the middle of one...
T.