Fresh Strawberries on my Cereal

Jan 15 2020

In the damp chill

of a January thaw

I am tromping through a parking lot

of sloppy dirty slush,

crisscrossed with tire tracks

discarded coffee cups.

But on entering in

to the warm bright interior

I'm shocked to see fresh strawberries

on refrigerated shelves,

neatly stacked tiers

of luscious red fruit

crammed in plastic clamshells,

redolent of summer

and marked-down to sell.

How odd,

fresh strawberries on my cereal

in the very heart of winter

in this northern hinterland.

Every day, in the early morning dark

large trucks

are disgorging their abundance

at back-door loading docks,

where the stench of idling diesel

combines with sweet exotic fruit

in the cold still air.

We never imagine they won't come

if even give it any thought.

Employees stacking shelves

as fast as they empty out;

as if strawberries

were inexhaustible

and there will always be more,

a conveyor belt

of imported fruit and vegetables

that seems to happen of itself.

A cornucopia, overflowing

with colour, choice, and smell.

Like a tenuous lifeline

there's a ribbon of highway

that's running day and night,

over 2,000 miles

through black ice and blizzards

and fighting back sleep,

accidents, and traffic jams

a grinding mountain pass.

All the way from California

and its sun-dappled coast,

strawberries appear

in our land-locked winter

like a dazzling shock of red

in a white expanse of snow.

The abundance of the modern supermarket would strike any previous generation as near miraculous. Yet we – privileged, entitled, jaded – take it all for granted.

Despite how unsustainable this industrial food system is.

Unsustainable because of its environmental cost; a debt that is steadily accumulating, but remains conveniently out of sight and mind.

And also unsustainable because our consumer culture is a prime example of a complex interdependent system; the sort of system that may be a triumph of social organization, but is notoriously vulnerable to disruption – the usual contingency and bad luck that, in the fullness of time, seem almost inevitable.

So this poem is about the unlikeliness of the way we live. We take it for granted. It seems eternal and fixed. But it's actually very recent, as well as very different from the way our predecessors have always lived.

I often wonder if this is the last time I will be able to buy strawberries in winter. Or perhaps anything other than root vegetables stored for months! I've noticed, too, that the supermarket offerings are getting continuously more exotic and abundant. Have I ever seen so many strawberries and blueberries this time of year? Which reminds me of a dying tree: how it musters the last of its strength in a great final efflorescence; a final spasm of defiance before its imminent death.

And there may not be much point to this indulgence, anyway. Because I took some poetic licence with my description of these strawberries. They may be red enough, but are hardly luscious, or redolent, or tasty. Mostly, they're cardboard. And, unless they're genuinely organic, full of pesticides and chemicals. Disproportionately so, compared to other fruit.