PAD Day 24: Impostor Fruit

Today's prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "nature" poem, and (2) write a poem about a particular fruit, decribing it as closely as possible. Well, one of my most "popular" poems (if I can say that), is "How to Peel an Orange", the first important publication of this phase of my poetic life, back in 2000, and the basis for the name of this blog. So I decided to take a slightly different tack here, focusing on a plant that has a fruit which is not normally eaten. Its wildness provides the response to the "nature" prompt. For a really great poem about fruit and nature, though, may I refer you to Seamus Heaney's poem "Blackberry-picking". Anyway, here is mine, in the form of a tanka series:

Mock Strawberry

trefoil toothy leaves

on vines invading my lawn,

tiny buds of red -

you look like miniatures

of my most favorite fruit

your berries don't hang

but poke up, giving away

your identity

and you, creeping impostor,

have yellow, not white, flowers

I just Googled you -

your fruit isn't poisonous

but it has no taste

thus rendering you useless -

demoted to common weed

still there is something

cheerful about you this spring

the pops of color

I hesitate to pull you

and in the end, leave you be.