A Poem by Nina Adel

(berry)

 

I want to know

why

 

I love the sweet, broken ones

 

the sun

selects and burns away

segments

of the aggregate fruit

 

I cannot throw away

the last blackberry,

hold it, bleeding

in my palm.

ease away

the ruined drupelets.

guard

the raw remains

in my mouth

 

as if

 

my tongue

could heal a fruit of nature

 

loving, this way,

one isolated berry

could revive its far-gone cells

 

the renewal

of a berry

could take me home again

and make it good

            this time.

 

 

 

Nina Adel –writer, singer-songwriter, educator and teaching artist - .was educated at the Berklee College of Music (vocal performance, composition), University of New Mexico (Spanish, English, TESOL) and Belmont University (MA in English/Creative Writing). She received training in aesthetic education from the Leonard Bernstein Center and The Wolf Trap Foundation She has worked as a Spanish-English-Portuguese translator, released three studio-length recordings of original music and founded and directed an arts-based nonprofit community organization. Amongst her recent published works are fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, music, translations and academic articles in the Louisiana Folklife Journal, New Sun Rising, 100 Stories For Haiti, the Tennessean, Belmont Literary Journal, Journal of Postcolonial Cultures and Societies and Poets for Living Water. She lives, teaches and writes in Nashville, Tennessee., where she resides with her two children.