Fruits Poem By Goh Poh Seng -

Goh Poh Seng left Singapore in the 1980s and settled in Canada. That biographical fact is crucial. For an exile, “fruits” are never just fruits. They become metonyms for a lost world. A starfruit is not a starfruit—it is a geometry of home. A mangosteen’s purple rind is the bruise of separation.

In “Fruits,” the act of eating becomes an act of remembering. The speaker tastes the sweetness, but the palate is now foreign. Canadian apples are crisp but lack the volcanic perfume of a Southeast Asian guava. The poem mourns not just the fruit, but the tongue that once knew how to name it without translation.

This is a deeper bitterness: the exile consumes the fruit of a new land, but his memory digests the fruit of the old. Neither fully satisfies. The poem’s melancholy is not about death alone—it is about the half-life of belonging.

The poem pivots from the luscious description of the fruit to the human element: the beggars. Goh Poh Seng employs a deliberate structural parallel to connect the two:

"Golden skins / ... / Beggars with skins / Like withered leaves." fruits poem by goh poh seng

Here, the contrast is sharp. The fruits have "golden skins," smooth and desirable. The beggars, however, have skin "withered" by age, poverty, and exposure to the elements. The simile "like withered leaves" is particularly poignant; it suggests that the beggars are dry, brittle, and perhaps viewed by society as "dead" or disposable debris, in contrast to the "living," vibrant fruit.

Despite this physical decay, Goh introduces a powerful metaphor that subverts the reader's expectations. He writes:

"Sitting there, stumps of legs / Like heavy logs."

The comparison of the beggars' legs to "heavy logs" creates a distinct image. Logs are wood; wood comes from trees. While the fruits are the "golden" outcome of nature, the beggars are likened to the earthy, solid base of nature. Goh solidifies this metaphor with a rhetorical question that acts as the philosophical core of the poem: Goh Poh Seng left Singapore in the 1980s

"Are they too / Fruits of the earth?"

This question challenges the hierarchy of value. Society prizes the fruit for its taste and beauty, ignoring the human suffering on the sidewalk. Yet, the poet asks us to recognize that the beggars are also products of the same natural world. They are "fruits" of humanity and the earth, possessing a right to exist and be acknowledged, even if they lack the "golden" exterior.

When we first encounter the title “Fruits” by Goh Poh Seng (1936–2010), a certain expectation blooms. We think of sweetness, ripeness, the generous bounty of tropical earth. Given that Goh was a Singaporean-born writer, physician, and eventual Canadian exile, the image of mangoes, rambutans, or durians might come to mind—the sticky, sun-drenched lexicon of home.

But to read “Fruits” as a simple ode to nature’s candy is to miss its sharp, bittersweet core. This poem is not about agriculture. It is about appetite, mortality, and the melancholic arithmetic of growing older. It is a poem that asks: What do we consume, and what, in time, consumes us? "Golden skins /

Let us peel back the layers.

The poem opens by immersing the reader in a specific atmosphere. The speaker describes a "golden time of day," a phrase that immediately evokes the period around sunset or late afternoon. This is a time of transition, where the harshness of the midday sun softens into something mellow and forgiving.

Goh introduces the fruits with striking visual imagery:

"Golden skins, / Golden flesh / Golden juice."

The repetition of the word "golden" serves multiple purposes. Literally, it describes the color of the fruits (likely mangoes, papayas, or bananas—tropical staples). Symbolically, "gold" suggests value, richness, and a divine quality. By using this repetition, Goh elevates the fruits from mere commodities to objects of beauty and worth. The phrase "ripened to perfection" suggests that nature has completed its cycle of growth, offering a gift that is ready to be consumed.