Taste

Taste symbolizes that which connects the speaker to the feeling of joy and wonder. More than any of the five senses, the faculty of taste is what enables the speaker to fully experience and appreciate the peaches. This is why most images in the second stanza describing the peach have to do with the act of eating it: “nectar at the roadside” (8), “succulent” (8), “dusty skin and all” (9). The taste of the peach also links to memories of childhood and innocence, of the “familiar dust of summer” (10), thus possessing a sentimental value for the speaker as well.

Time

Time symbolizes life and the life cycle. The time that it took for the peach to become what it is, starting from the “blossoms” (1) in the first stanza and the “hands” (6) that plucked them, reminds the speaker of the “days” (14, 17) of his own life. The concrete, tactile interaction with...