Apples in the Forest

Deep in the woods you find it,
an ancient orchard nearly swallowed
by brambles and towering trees,
a place abandoned,
deemed no longer worth the effort
to keep the wildness at bay,
swallowed by time and neglect,
until it lives now in shadows,
each limb twisted and misshapened
in its struggle for the light.

There are apples there.
Ripe and perfect, they hang in the dappled light
waiting for the picker that will never come,
destined to fall, and die, and rot.

You reach up and pluck a single apple.
You polish it on your shirt
and admire the yellows and reds.
You feel it’s firmness
and bite into it’s firm moist flesh
and standing in the shadows you eat it.

Like a child, you save the seeds,
and put them in your pocket,
determined to make this struggling life
live again.

About this poem

A couple of days ago I was walking in the woods behind my friend Jeff Anderson’s farm, and came on a section of orchard, long abandoned, overgrown, and full of apples. What makes us abandon a rich orchard, I wondered. It’s been on my mind ever since as I have passed abandoned farms, houses, and people.

I still don’t have the answers. But I am sure each one holds a story.

Tom