WINTER APPLE

I am an apple four months old and still
I hang on leafless branch. Cold snow on the ground
Is all around. My skin is smooth and brown.
A few heroic comrades brave the chill

January air. We don’t know why
Our stems decline to let us drop and set
Us free. And so we dangle on and forget
Our bushels of siblings, those that ended in pie

Or cider or barrels in musty lightless cellars.
The spread of windfalls that circled the tree in September
Has disappeared, nearly unremembered.
I think we’re some of us getting rather jealous,

We sober spheres in the mummifying air–
We’re ready to be recycled and unaware.

(77, Craftsbury, Jan 6, 1993)

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