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Sunday, October 17, 2010

After Apple-Picking

...Get it? Cuz I'm studying poetry, and that's, like, a famous poem!

I'm sure one of us will someday blog about, you know, school. But for now, I'd like to talk about the fact that there is a small orchard of apple trees here on the Pilgrims grounds, six of which are presently bearing, four of which are presently bearing well -- crisp, juicy, tart-enough-for-baking, sweet-enough-for-snacking, big, rosy, beautiful apples.

So every few days, Kathleen or I take a shopping bag down to the orchard. Sometimes we bring a camera. Sometimes we bring a friend with a camera. Click to enlarge.









We eat them in sandwiches...
(mayo, horseradish, ham, apple, Brie, sauteed leek)

...in salads...
(spinach, honey-mustard vinaigrette, chickpeas, apple, 
boiled egg, smoked mackerel, crumbled Blacksticks bleu 
and cranberry-Wendsleydale cheeses)

...
and, of course, in pastry.
(pie.)

I love picking apples (and peaches, and pumpkins, and berries, and corn, and rosemary, and and and, ad infinitum [NON ad nauseam]). I wrote the following poem a couple months ago; it gets all philosophical or whatever on the subject of trees and fruit. But deep down I'm just flat-out awed by the fact that green leafy things grow up out of the dirt and make flowers that turn into tasty, nourishing food.



Reparation

If you wake
(or dream) to find
your house harboring
a tree trunk
—like a rough sticky pillar
placed by a drunken architect
smack-in-front of the fridge door,
perhaps, or snugged in the crook
of the Steinway, ruining 
the high notes
or precisely between the sitting room sofas,
necessitating awkward
tilts of the head
when company calls to converse—
do not cut it down
(or out or away). Instead enjoy
the scent, the texture,
the surprise of still life.
Maybe if you’re lucky
the creaks you hear in the night
will be the tree 
beginning
to bear the dead wood weight
of floorboards and beams,
gathering and lifting them up onto tiptoe
until at last the whole house
leaves earth
for that slow green ride
toward the sun.
More likely,
the results will be just
disastrous: black roots cracking
your foundation while branches
tangle in rafters
and the widening trunk drips
a slow rain of broken plaster into your hair—
all as leaves press their broad faces
against your window panes
like a gang of laughing children.
Because trees don’t know how
(or when or why)
to stop.
They grow and grow and grow until
they die. But 

it’s the least you can do
to let it so grow—that old stolen apple 
left more than human
skin naked. When the first chill
dropped, what must the robbed
tree have thought
when its bark split
its sap sludged
and before their final fall
its leaves stiffened one by one—
it not having eyes
to see the rainbow glow
the feather flight
of their death?




3 comments:

  1. Please stop being such a brilliant poet. It's far too inspiring. Okay, thanks.

    (Read: I adore this.)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey, you don't know me. I'm Kat's best friend from Medford. But I love your poem, and I thought you ought to know! :)

    Oh, and the food doesn't look too shabby either!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yay for my friends knowing each other!!! This is awesome. I miss you Sav! Yes, Annie, I love this poem. I like the change exing of the television--didn't that used to be in there? Anyway, brilliant.

    ReplyDelete

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