Neglect
R. T. Smith
Is the scent of apple boughs smoking
in the woodstove what I will remember
of the Red Delicious I brought down,
ashamed
that I could not convince its limbs to
render fruit?
Too much neglect will do that, skew
the sap's
passage, blacken leaves, dry the bark
and heart.
I should have lopped the dead limbs
early
and watched each branch with a
goshawk's eye,
patching with medicinal pitch,
offering water,
compost and mulch, but I was too
enchanted
by pear saplings, flowers and the
pasture,
too callow to believe that death's
inevitable
for any living being unloved,
untended.
What remains is this armload of
applewood
now feeding the stove's smolder.
Splendor
ripens a final time in the firebox, a
scarlet
harvest headed, by dawn, to embers.
Two decades of shade and blossoms -
tarts
and cider, bees dazzled by the pollen,
spare elegance in ice - but what goes
is gone.
Smoke is all, through this lesson in
winter
regret, I've been given to remember.
Smoke, and Red Delicious apples redder
than a passing cardinal's crest or
cinders.
from Poetry, Oct-Nov, 2002
Copyright 2002 by R. T. Smith.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced with permission (click for
permissions information).
