The War of the Pomegranates

The quarrel of fruit
That ancient dispute
The bittersweet feud of the trees
Each pomegranate
Thought itself the most fit
From the black fruit down by the sea
To the gold on the hill
Crimson red in the vale
Each fruit swore the last one to be

Their juice like their skin
Same without as within
Swelled out in pride from each tree
Golden ran clear
Black wept dark tears
And crimson flowed sweet as could be

The mountain fruit sang
To her oceanside kin
And said, we can settle our score
Once crimson is gone
But let's sort her out first
In contests, they say, less is more

The black and the gold
Each sang to the birds
Of the seaside and of the high hill
Our fruit shall belong
To the first of your kind
That the fruit of our sister can kill

The birds in dark flocks
On the crimson fruit fell
Red stains of her sweet juice did run
But the birds were so pleased
By her juice, that her seeds
They spread 'cross the lands of the sun
And they never came back
For the gold or the black
So that's how the crimson fruit won


(Made this ring-rhymey verse up in my head while folding clothes, blind to the specifics of [but not the existence of] a broad worldwide pomegranate culture.  What the heck, I waded in ignorantly anyway.  I was just idly thinking about the idea that the apple of Eden was probably a pomegranate, the Persephone connections with that idea, and then wondering if the same could be said for the golden apples.  That got me going into all kinds of varietal imaginings, and thinking how cool other colors of pomegranate would be.  After writing it down, I was not surprised at all to find online that black [purple] and golden pomegranates are cultivated.  But clearly, and perhaps sadly... the crimson has won. )

(Couldn't find a picture of a golden in the 

public domain, but found this...)