,Apple Poem
Take the apple from the bowl or bough Or kitchen table where in gloom it glows And you will sense, mysteriously, how Its fragrance and substantial presence throws A shadow shape of this one's red and green, Whatever it may be, — Rose of Bern, Spice Pippin, Golden Russet, Hawthorn Dean - Across the mind and then you may discern Through every sense the quintessential fruit, Perfected properties all apples own, In this platonic shadow; absolute This pleasing thing that you alone have grown.
Beneath the apple's skin, its green or gold, Yellow, red, or streaked with varied tints, The white flesh tempts, sharp or sweet, quite cold.
Its blood is colourless; scent teases, hints At othernesses that you can't define; The taste of innocence, so slow to fade, Persists like memory. This fruit is wine And bread; is eucharistic. It has played Its role in epics, fairy-tales, among Most races of the earth; made prophecies Of marriages and kept the Norse Gods young; Shone like moons on Hesperidian trees.
And here, domestic, familiar as a pet, Plump as your granny's cheek, prepared to be Translated into jam or jelly, yet It still retains a curious mystery.
Forget the holy leaves, the pagan lore And that you munch on legends when you eat, But see, as you crunch closer to the core Those little pips, diminutive and neat Containers aping tiny beetles or MicroscopiC purses, little beads, Each holding in its patient dark a store Of apples, flowering orchards, countless seeds.
Vernon Scannell
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