Off the ladder, he stumbles --
nerves jangle and apples spill
from the heaped peck basket
and thud soft down. He stoops to them:
perfect galas, heavy and blush dappled,
nestled in the folded golden billows
of grass. They're for the cider bin,
though they seem undamaged. Time,
that healer, will see the bruises blossom
and such a softness
spreads. Not as contagion,
but the way an ache sets in,
or a word.
Silence has a wholeness
that's like a drop
of water. It's called
surface tension. It's called
skin. Once it breaks, how words
would pour --
-- but he doesn't break. Apples
neat as grenades. He tosses them binward,
careless, and -- wanting sweetness --
slips one to swing his pocket:
warm and heavy, flecked with grass,
burnt crown tangled with seed.
___________
I can't seem to stop writing for Ghost Maps. I can't think my editor will be happy with me -- she's had the book for only a week and here I am changing it again. This is another poem from the dreaded section five, which I think may be finding its feet.
I wrote this is a sort of slow rush, and only afterward noticed its many connections to other poems, notably "Crossing," the first poem of the section, with which it shares a structure, and "Ghost Maps" itself, with which it shares an opening. I feel as if the little filaments may be starting to catch, the web find its anchors.
I haven't gone to re-read "After Apple Picking" yet -- I'm sort of afraid to. How dare I challenge Robert Frost to this ground? But perhaps we can live together peacefully.
