Wild Apples
with 'bow-arrow tang'
cows or birds or Johnny Appleseed
planted
New England westward
Whole orchards, boughs knotted
with fruits of coral & gold — to be eaten, Thoreau believed,
in the wind.
Whose 'bloom' rubs off in pockets
like wild horses
broken in, harnessed
to plow.
Neither orchards of the east, in lichened
walls, or west
hedged in eucalyptus—
bounded only by slopes of oak
& of maple,
the woods-apple comes sweet from the hills, both spring
nights & autumn
a wildflower sharpness, an earthy
cider
Domestics
shape
for hand,
& tint
of 'apple
color'
—but wild may brindle
as a cow,
may rust like
rock
____________________________
Valley of the
Many-Colored Grasses
The Song Cave, 2023
