Among the laden boughs
in a pocket of leaves--
unaware of its comeliness
or of the raindrops on its cheeks
innocent of its own gold juice
this one nestled.

I had watched it--every sister-apple, too--
from white-flower
swaddling to full particularity:
in the quiet of evening, in the rush of noon-
work, ever there against all comers,
our destinies joined.

Not at all the Lord God’s experience as
he walked out in the cool of a long-ago garden
with his pet, the subtle serpent, warning the caretakers:
One bite of this fruit and you’re out!
His garden bounded by flaming swords and
not like mine at all, no gates needing mending, no deer
proof fences. Only swords and angels there,
nakedness amongst the trees of the garden:
“Only dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life,”
and “Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.”

I have eaten good and evil:
like Eve brought forth children, seen sorrows multiplied;
I know about dust, the kind that falls down for me to sweep,
the kind I have to eat, and the dust unto which
I shall return.I have strewn such dust upon a small river.

Yet, the thought of an apple arrived to me at my desk
on a raining October morning the word was made flesh
and this one apple, for pleasure,
rounded all thoughts
to an instant of ripeness

© by Grace Hughes Chappell.
Used with the author’s permission.