Loquat Season

Brown streaky house finch Your crest as orange as loquats Ripe fruit and peeping

My next-door neighbors have a loquat tree. It grows right outside my window, close enough to startle me on windy nights when its leaves smack into the glass. Loquats are not terribly pretty trees; they have an untidy shape and their leaves are ordinary in their large green fuzziness. They shed those leaves in heavy brown drifts, making for nice nests for roof rats and spiders, and annoyances for their human patrons. For a few weeks out of the year they have the adornment of their heavy orange fruits, soft and glowing, but afterward, the wizened brown husks and stripped branches make the tree look like it's sick or moulting. (In a way, it is.) The fruits are somewhat disappointing to the human palate too; they have the fuzziness of the peach, the mealiness of old apples, and the sour tang of plums in their skin. The seed is huge, taking up well over half of the fruit. And it is that seed that redeems the loquat for me.

The seed of the loquat is smooth as a stone, and of a rich golden brown that draws in the eye. When I say golden, I don't mean yellow. I mean that the skin of the seed shimmers and glistens like a streambed full of mica, a swirl of subtle reflectivity that transforms the seed into something magical, like a dragon's egg or a giant's bean. And like those transitory magics, the glow of the loquat lasts only as long as the seed is tender and fresh; dried, it fades to a dull brown like that of the tree's dead leaves or an old woman's eyes.

When I was a child, and a teenager, we lived in a house that had a loquat growing outside the front door. One of my chores, shared with my brother, was to sweep away the leaves that fell, especially at times when company was expected. I didn't mind so much, as sweeping dead leaves from the front porch was preferable to picking up rotted fruit in the backyard. I found the sweeping soothing, the gentle brushing sound of the bristles along the concrete and pebbles, the dry rasping of the dead loquat leaves as they were dragged along with the dirt, the soft padding tread of my bare feet -- all echoed the sounds of breath in lungs and throat and blood in heart and veins. Dry dust tickled my nose, but I did not sneeze.

When the loquat is fruiting, it draws birds from all their little hiding places, pulls them down out of the sky when they pass by on their daily rounds. They descend on the plump, deceptive fruits and screech and squabble with each other between bouts of frenzied pecking. The bold mockingbird strides the branches, and cocks its head at me, its eye as bright as a loquat seed. The energetic house sparrows flutter between tree and ground like leaves, falling and rising again and again. A brilliant yellow warbler chatters on the topmost branch, scratchy and buzzing like the rattling of sticks in the wind. And high above him, a small house finch, with a crest as orange as the loquats, prepares to descend.

Most house finches are tinged a pinkish-red, and sometimes a reddish purple. I do not believe it coincidence that it is an orange variant that frequents my neighbor's loquat tree. There is something about the loquat, ugly and messy and fuzzy though it may be, that finds its way inside.

Comments

[jo(e)]

I love the way you write.

[Rana]

Thank you!

(And, ditto!)

[Psycho Kitty]

Rana, this is lovely.

[russianviolets]

Wow, you are so talented. Gorgeous work!

[Phantom Scribbler]

This is lovely, Rana. Expand on a few of these observational posts, and you'll have a book of essays in no time...

[Erudite Redneck]

All I do is read. I mean, I read for a living, and write, and edit. Yes, yes, newspaper stuff, not literature. But I do know my way around the language. This is the best writing I have written in I don't when. Bravo!

[Erudite Redneck]

Good Lord. I mean: This is the best writing I have READ in I don't KNOW when. SIGH.

[Jodie]

All the best things in life are messy. :) And after reading this, I think I'd like to experience a loquat for myself.

[Rana]

You should all know I'm hoarding up these compliments so I can bring them out to console myself when the inevitable rejections come.

Thank you. :)

[dale]

Wot they all said. Beautiful.

[Pica]

I think you're just a little harsh on the taste of the loquat fruit. But I agree about the seed. They're gorgeous, like a lychee-stone but richer warm brown.

[Rana]

I will agree that the flesh, once you get to it, is not bad. It's just that, for me, there's not enough of it to make it worth fighting through the rest of it. The seed is, though! :)

[Beth]

I think some of this may depend on the variety of loquat. I've had some with lots of fruit on the (gorgeous) seed. But locally, the fruit/seed ratio seems smaller. Still, they taste great, imo. Like an orange-flavored peach.

[Rana]

I will admit it's been a while since I've had one. Perhaps I should filch one off the neighbor's tree and give it a taste?