14 MARCH 1952, Page 10

Apple Logs Burning

Consumed is the knuckle bud, the petals upturned like shells, The saw-edged, puckered leaf, and the fruit's gold.

From the gnarled branch uncurls a frond of flame, Loose flowers of fire, and smoke as light as the pollen That will not drift again to swell the clenched Knop of the calyx into the apple's globe. Like deaths of saints is this burning, this abnegation Of youth, of beauty, all that the sap foretold, Yet hands stretched out are warmed, on faces falls Light soft as rain, and in the quiet air A fragrance lingers sweet as the smell of snow.

MARGARET STANLEY-WRENCH.