The final couplet— "For even fruits must learn to leave the light, / And ripeness turns to rot before the night" —is the poem’s thesis. Notice he says fruits must "learn" to leave the light. Learning implies consciousness, a reluctant acceptance. Unlike humans who rage against the dying of the light, Goh suggests that fruits possess a quiet, agrarian wisdom. They know their time. The tragedy is that we, the eaters, often forget.
Goh highlights the physical, sensory experience of the growing fruits, describing how the weight of the harvest bows the branches in a "graceful" display of natural abundance. The heavy boughs, bending toward the earth, represent a quiet, grateful return of what the soil provided. fruits poem by goh poh seng
In the 1960s and 70s, Singapore’s countryside was dotted with fruit orchards—in Kampong Lorong Buangkok, along the hills of Thomson, and in the rural stretches of Changi. By the 1980s, most were gone. The poem’s repeated question, "You ask for my home?" is rhetorical. The answer is not an address but a ghost. The final couplet— "For even fruits must learn