On a winter evening in 2002, I was attending a meeting for a social cause at my friend  Shahul Hameed’s house. When the meeting was about to be over, he brought a tray of fruits as snacks. Among them, I saw something incongruous- a plateful of sliced pieces of what looked like tomatoes. No one touched the apparent ‘Tomatoes’ while we eagerly savoured the other fruits. Noticing our inhibition, Shahul told us that they were not tomatoes but sweet persimmons (It is called Kaki fruit in India). I tasted a piece and was struck by its smooth texture, its sticky sweetness, syrupy taste and indescribably delicious fruity flavor. I was literally tasting a new experience. Shahul said he too once bought it by mistake thinking it as tomatoes but was bowled over by its taste. There onwards, I have become an addict of this fruit, waiting for the season to savour the pleasurable persimmons. But the fruit has a split personality. The unripe ones , though sweet, carries a bit of astringent taste. The skin of a ripe and glossy one is so taut that one tough touch can tear its delicate skin and spill the jelly pulp.

I was reminded of my above experience as I read this beautiful and powerfully painful poem by a Chinese Poet called Li-Young Lee. It also roused my own maudlin mango memories. 

     PERSIMMONS

In sixth grade Mrs. Walker
slapped the back of my head
and made me stand in the corner
for not knowing the difference
between persimmon and precision.
How to choose

persimmons. This is precision.
Ripe ones are soft and brown-spotted.
Sniff the bottoms. The sweet one
will be fragrant. How to eat:
put the knife away, lay down the newspaper.
Peel the skin tenderly, not to tear the meat.
Chew on the skin, suck it,
and swallow. Now, eat
the meat of the fruit,
so sweet
all of it, to the heart.

Donna undresses, her stomach is white.
In the yard, dewy and shivering
with crickets, we lie naked,
face-up, face-down,
I teach her Chinese. Crickets: chiu chiu. Dew: I’ve forgotten.
Naked: I’ve forgotten.
Ni, wo: you me.
I part her legs,
remember to tell her
she is beautiful as the moon.

Other words
that got me into trouble were
fight and fright, wren and yarn.
Fight was what I did when I was frightened,
fright was what I felt when I was fighting.
Wrens are small, plain birds,
yarn is what one knits with.
Wrens are soft as yarn.
My mother made birds out of yarn.
I loved to watch her tie the stuff;
a bird, a rabbit, a wee man.

Mrs. Walker brought a persimmon to class
and cut it up
so everyone could taste
a Chinese apple. Knowing
it wasn’t ripe or sweet, I didn’t eat
but watched the other faces.

My mother said every persimmon has a sun
inside, something golden, glowing,
warm as my face.

Once, in the cellar, I found two wrapped in newspaper
forgotten and not yet ripe.
I took them and set them both on my bedroom windowsill,
where each morning a cardinal
sang. The sun, the sun.

Finally understanding
he was going blind,
my father would stay up all one night
waiting for a song, a ghost.
I gave him the persimmons, swelled, heavy as sadness,
and sweet as love.

This year, in the muddy lighting
of my parents’ cellar, I rummage, looking
for something I lost.
My father sits on the tired, wooden stairs,
black cane between his knees,
hand over hand, gripping the handle.

He’s so happy that I’ve come home.
I ask how his eyes are, a stupid question.
All gone, he answers.

Under some blankets, I find three scrolls.
I sit beside him and untie
three paintings by my father:
Hibiscus leaf and a white flower.
Two cats preening.
Two persimmons, so full they want to drop from the cloth.

He raises both hands to touch the cloth,
asks, Which is this?

This is persimmons, Father.

Oh, the feel of the wolf tail on the silk,
the strength, the tense
precision in the wrist.
I painted them hundreds of times
eyes closed. These I painted blind.
Some things never leave a person:
scent of the hair of one you love,
the texture of persimmons,
in your palm, the ripe weight.

           Li-Young Lee


There are several elements that figure importantly in this poem. Persimmon stand for painful memories of cultural barriers imposed by language and custom, and for a present-day loving connection to an elderly, blind father. The poet begins with a schoolboy incident in which he was punished for not knowing the difference between “persimmon” and “precision” and makes a play on other words which sound similar and “that got (him) into trouble.” He takes revenge later, when the teacher brings to class a persimmon that only the narrator knows is unripe, as he “watched the . . . faces” without participating. We now understands that the sixth grader’s misperception due to pronunciation finds the right revenge when the boy can handle the difference in meaning between these two words quite nimbly: “How to choose / persimmons. This is precision.”

Persimmons also remind him of an adult sensual relationship with Donna and of his attempts to teach her Chinese words which he himself can no longer remember. The speaker first suggests, perhaps shamefacedly, his detachment from his parents and their culture by embodying the source of his distraction in the figure of Donna, a white girl (or woman) with whom he lies naked in the grass. The speaker’s vacillating attempts to teach Donna Chinese and his own forgetting of some words due to non-use hint at the fading power of his parents’ culture and its values in USA.
Ripe persimmons continue to gain positive associations as the speaker next recalls his mother’s observation that “every persimmon has a sun / inside, something golden, glowing, / warm as my face.” The second part of the poem describes the role persimmons have played in his father’s life and in their relationship. To comfort his father, gone blind, the narrator gives him two sweet, ripe persimmons, so full and redolent with flavor that it will surely stimulate the senses remaining. The fruit links him with his father when he says ”forgotten” persimmons, “swelled, heavy as sadness, / and sweet as love.”

Later, in the “muddy lighting” of his parents’ cellar, with his father sitting on the stairs, the poet searches for something meaningful from his past: “I rummage, looking / for something I lost.” He finds three rolled-up paintings by his now blind father. As the father reaches to touch a rendering of “Two persimmons, so full they want to drop from the cloth,” he remembers “the strength, the tense / precision in the wrist” required to paint them. For both the poet and reader the search has ended. The poet has recovered two qualities embodied in and demonstrated by his parents that he has found so lacking in American culture: the rich, full warmth of his parents’ love, figured in persimmons, and their precise, caring ways, represented by their respective crafts. The poem ends with the father’s remark that “some things never leave a person”.
Indeed this  precisely crafted poem  reaches into the murky depths of memory to salvage the captivating characteristics of one’s parents and one’s culture. It is a sensitive and supreme example of how a fruitful emotional association such as with persimmon can transform and enrich our life

Ref : Rose (New Poets of America): Li-Young Lee (Author)
Gerald Stern (Foreword)