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Apple Trees
After a bounteous summer
the apple trees are shedding leaves
lifting shaking limbs
gold and russet garments drift
to windblown heaps
fallen fruits yield rotting fragrance
sinking into earth’s clay embrace
Brown skinned branches lift
their nakedness hiding prayers
of buds, new sap that will flow
mothered by a distant spring;
secrets difficult to grasp in
hide and seek light
of a year’s end moon
I see mystery, riddles posed
in restless patterns of leaves.
Beyond the orchard fence,
lies the cemetery
where each year that passes
we decorate your stone with
new garlands that dry and disperse
in wind, no trace remains
I pause for a minute by the grave
tell you how the children are
and that I miss you, talk about the
earthquake they are predicting
perhaps this year, perhaps in fifty
A wind is rising from behind the hills
it gives no answers, the light is lessening,
winter approaches. The dog pulls hard
on the leash, he wants home
© Johnmichael Simon
2007
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