...was not a thing foretold.
It had no predicate in augury or suspicion.
The slow demise that sudden sprung
Caught my sight and breath
The apple tree undone, severed by a pale wisp of wind.
[I call the Apple he and she
to honor the latent memory
legend, belief, and mystery -
He and She the human journey
began in Eden with a tree]
He and she had grown old and weak, for so long
Was old and strong…what went wrong?
Why did the lichen covered trunk suddenly
Bend the green grass?
Leaves withered over half. Dry twigs for supple branches
She once wore robin’s nests in her hair, now so bare
And the fruits...tiny and forgiving
food for squirrels and flowers for bees.
The death of the Apple tree on the corner
At the juncture of Oak and winding streets with forgettable
names
There in the soft gaze of a drooping fir,
and not so far
from the old Sycamore.
The old apple fell; a
mere block away, the nearest apple tree, bent low
like an old weeping woman, seems in peril too.
Why should this gnarled and broken tree
Speak any consequence to me.
On an urban island, its tragedy
Confined to casual passersby.
I see the core gone empty
where once was heartwood, sturdy
Life water left rings of age and purity.
Was it the early swelling of its nodes
when her white blankets unfold
and earth would soon lift her chin’
And tend to my delight the slow bend
From frigid air to buzzing bees.
Perhaps the flash of deepest red and early
blossoms so fragile that we dread flurry
from gusts, or rain in windy pelting
No, I think it is the time;
I am blessed to see
Many things at beauty’s end, simply…and so many
The death of the apple tree ripples news, as cars pause to note
The change from yesterday and the scores of years before
As he and she rose from sapling to be the throne
of red top cardinal and vibrant Blue Jay
Now. A solitary Pecker sights the culprits beneath the tired
old skin
Rap-a-tap gobble down too late
For the Apple tree is gone- and the roots
Crackle and sigh in the night for the sun
Can only whisper now…of glory days and sweet fruit.
