The Apple Tree

By R.Power

 

The mad cackled grin grows on

your skin; and marbled eyes that

do not blink, now stabilised.

And the apple tree; do you

Remember the apple tree?

You spent too long there

lingered on, long after I was gone.

 

I cannot grasp your words;

Like flitting butterflies they

pass with urgency. Dressed

full of colour they are aimless

And intoxicated, untamed

And freed from the cocooned

Rigid ness of sanity.

 

You stand to walk,

Clumsy as a child’s first effort.

Though you have learned the

Balancing act well—do not

Stumble, do not falter.

Your gaze fixed in perplexity

Turns to me “It was too sudden,

 

 

The invasion!  Do you think?

It was always there?”

My only recollection is the apple tree;

You failed to watch each year

how it blossomed and grew.

You stayed too long there -

long after I was gone.

 

 

And the butterfly flies and you’re away.

Small fragments of you

constantly drowning

one by one. I watch as you put

your head in your knees

searching for solitude; a quiet

Place down there where you might

 

 

recognise yourself.

Or crawl on the floor searching

for a hole that you can climb

down into, where darkness,

as forgiving as ever will allow

you to forget; will welcome

your cadaverous shape.

 

 

I drive home. The twisted  roads

cold and desolate; relentlessly

reminding me of you. I pass by the

apple tree  -its blossoms gone;

haunted by the wind that howls

in it. A small boy sits underneath

seeking propinquity, as it slips from his hands.

Forgetting his future.