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Drawn from my personal mythology, I imagine the pomegranate originating  in water, much like the belief that all life begins in the sea. It is only upon reaching land that the pomegranate takes on its current form.

 

The work is based on my poem about the myth:

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The First Red Seed
Before land became home, there was only the sea.
And in its murmur, a coral bloomed
pale as moonmilk, soft as sleep.

This was the first pomegranate,
before it knew the colour red.
The mer women wanted these treasures close,
these shimmering hearts of the deep.

And so when they rose toward the light,
they carried their treasures with them,
dripping silver through their fingers.

On the shore they found barren trees
and hung the corals one by one,
hoping the wind would hum like the tides.

But air is a different kind of water.
Slowly, the pearls began to dry.
shrinking, even cracking, and then, impossibly, blushing.

One turned red,
as if the ocean’s pulse had been caught inside.

Then another, and another,
until the whole tree gleamed like a cluster of hearts.

And so the coral became fruit,
and the sea learned how to dream on land.