Apple As Life

First forbidden but thank god she took a bite so all the rest of us could get curious and disobey.

Even if, as some say, it was a pomegranate, full of apple-like seeds aspiring for applehood.

Out of Eden down the primrose path Johnny Appleseed spread the stuff out of which came apples pressed for cider. Drunk is much preferred over foul water.

I was seeded in the Big Apple before it was a household phrase. Did I give an apple to a teacher? I wouldn’t put it past me.

I bobbed for apples once; I think a tooth fell out. Maybe it was one of those poisoned apples left over from the witch in Snow White.

Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me. Glenn Miller, Bluebird Records, The Modernaires.

What’s not to love in the geometry of it? Apple, baseball, eyeball, roundabout and circle of friends. And apple pie out of the oven; love a la mode.

Jonathan and McIntosh, Fuji, Gala, Honey Crisp, and Granny Smith. Shoo fly pie and apple pan dowdy / I never get enough of that wonderful stuff.

What bounces and rolls, apple-like, marbles to golf balls to basketballs go into holes. Slam dunk. Some apples become balloons.

Some become moons. Take a bite. Steve Jobs did.

On a train riding out of Delft the man seated across was peeling an apple with the agility of a sculptor. Green skin curled around the white flesh, a vernal equinox separating itself in readiness from the last snow of winter.

And walk among long dappled grass / And pluck till time and times are done / the silver apples of the moon / the golden apples of the sun. Thank you, W. B. Yeats.

Cezanne painted apples and more apples. He unstilled their still-life. The world was his apple as it orbited the bowl.

But I am done with apple-picking now / Essence of winter’s sleep is on the night / (with)The scent of apples I am drowsing off. 

So says Robert Frost, not me. Small planets apples are. Like oranges without the rind to peel. Just sink your teeth to feel the juice of life dripping.

This is how one becomes a writer: A ten-year is on the lunch line at school and spots a bowl of apples with a sign saying: Take one. God is watching. A bit further on he/she sees a plate of cookies and writes his/hers first short story: Take all you want. God is watching the apples.