Goodbye, Cavendish

Baby bananas, no more, no more...
No more
crying rhizomes,
Dole, Del Monte, Chiquita,
no more...
No more two-weeks time
from plantation to store.

Little Cavendish, green,
you weren’t born on a tree,
you came not from a seed,
but you’re just like your brothers,
all one hundred billion,
born fresh
each and every equatorial year.

You’ve got identical genes
from perennial mothers --
or dare I say, sisters,
all outsourced from one
who took over when
dear, sweet Gros Michel
caught the Panama fungus in the early 60’s
and had to be laid to rest.

My Cavendish friend,
though you’re not quite as tasty
as the late “Big Mike”,
you still made Top Banana,
the passionate product of a triploid mother
and the men who got lucky
waving powdery pollen
over replicate rows
on their battered
three-speed bikes.

But, even now,
in your golden glory,
as you hang on that rack
with your peel-and-stick label
that certifies you
are the King of bananas,
Black Sigatoka and the new Race 4
are bringing your legacy down...

They say,
"No more bananas in five to ten years,
no more
'World’s Perfect Food'
for our muffins and puddings,
slices on cereal,
splits topped with cherries,
or chocolate-encapsulated 'nana sticks."

Baby bananas, no more, no more...
you and every last sibling,
all one hundred billion,
all facing extinction -- the victims of sterility,
all too perfect, yet lacking
the simple diversity
to make a mistake, a mere mutation,
one awful anomaly
that just might save the rest...

You cannot change,
and for this, you will die.

And in five to ten years,
when your taste is a memory,
after fruitless discussions and desperate debates,
those last genetic altercations
over bio-engineering and hybridization
will finally give it a rest,
as Dole, Del Monte, Chiquita,
and we
are forced to decide
what it is that we'll do
when we're offered
an FHIA-01.

Cavendish,
I miss you already.