Still Life with Apples and a Pomegranate by Gustave Courbet (1871-72)
Compliments of the National Gallery of Art, London
The February challenge was to write a poem featuring fruit. Susan
Holm, Here is the second place poem:
Ode to the Apple
after Lorca
You
were Newton’s clue,
red
rose of fruit, freckled
with
stars, you grew high
from
the Tree of Science—
swinging
with the comets—
until
you fell on his head
that
night of the pockmarked
full
moon, unlike your satin
face,
produce of the sun.
You
fell as the moon rose.
Skinny
young Newton dozed,
about
to upset the Earth
and
throw it out
of the
center of the universe
where
fell all dreck and mud,
according
to the alchemists.
You
are best when held up
high
on the branch—
but do
you feel a slight pull
from
this massive magnet, Earth?
How did Newton figure gravity
as the arc of falling, you perfection
of fruit—crimson skin, crisp insides,
not white, not yellow—dropping
while the moon stays hooked
in the sky, stuck, wheeling
in imperfect ellipse?
Did he
taste you
as did
Eve when she took
a bite
of you from the other
Tree
of Knowledge?
As the
serpent god advised
before
Adam’s bruised ribs
healed
or her wounding
began:
the birth of others.
A
small price to pay,
the
bigger price yet to come.
With
one taste Adam knew
the
love he would have
though
he had to leave.
Ah,
apple of Paradise, of summer,
I get
no sudden revelation
of
knowledge or love
from
you, just the taste
of
science as I nibble down
to
your poison core and arc
you
through the air so that you fall
into
the trash can, an equation
between
eye and hand and fruit.
I
still wonder how gravity adds up
though
I observe it every day,
including
the moon in orbit,
and
you still attached to your stem,
ghost
of an apple.
~ Robin
Scofield
About this poem, the judge said in part, “I find it an interesting
intellectual play on a triangular equation (Newton, the moon, the apple; Adam,
Eve, the apple; Eve, the tree of knowledge, the serpent; the poet, the apple,
the trash can or eye/hand/fruit), and I liked that the poet composed it in 3
line stanzas to match that triangular equation.” She found the poem more
compelling intellectually than emotionally, saying it is well done as “an intellectual
puzzle.”
The winning poem creates a very different atmosphere:
The Apples Are Ripe
The wind knows a
secret;
It calls through the
trees
And rattles the
branches
Like brittle old
keys.
For locked in
protection
Of leaves and brown
limbs
Are treasures more
precious
Than gold, oil, or
gems.
The apples are ripe!
Oh, I’ll yell it
again –
The apples are ready!
And you’ll know it
when
You reach up and
pluck one
And take that first
bite
Of sweet juicy
crispness;
You’ll yell with
delight –
The apples are ripe!
Green, yellow, and
red,
So lets drag the
baskets
From out of the shed.
Climb the old ladder
And isn’t it grand
To feel how each fruit
Lies cupped in your
hand.
Shine them up gently
And see each one glow
In dappled fall
sunlight:
And always you know
That the first bite
will sound
Like a crackle of
fire.
Oh the apples are
ripe,
And I never tire
Of gazing at trees
In those old orchards
where
I can breathe the
sweet smells
Of ripe-apple air.
~ Cindy Guentherman
“The Apples Are Ripe”
was first published in 1990 by Ideals.
About this poem, the judge said, “I loved the emotion/enthusiasm communicated in this poem. I
loved the meter which was an excellent vehicle for the spirit of the poem, and
I liked the rhyme, which, even though not 100% consistent, was never ‘stretched’
or constrained. The poem hit all the senses: aural: (the rhythm; ‘calls
through the trees,’ ‘brittle old keys,’ ‘crackle of fire’); visual: (‘Green,
yellow. and red,’ ‘dappled fall sunlight’); tactile: (I especially liked ‘lies
cupped in your hand’); olfactory (I especially liked ‘breathe the sweet
smells/of ripe-apple air’); and, of course, taste (‘sweet juicy crispness’). I
love human experience of the poem, and the fact that the poem is about a human
experience, and I loved the enthusiasm of that experience! It makes you
want to drop everything and run out into the orchard with the speaker.
Congratulations to the two winners of the February Poetry Challenge.
And thanks to all who submitted poems. A new challenge will be posted on March
1.
Bios:
Cindy Guentherman's book of poems titled Through My Fingers was published in 2014
by RWG Press. She has been published in a number of journals and has been a winner in a number of poetry contests.
Robin Scofield, author of And the Ass Saw the Angel and Sunflower
Cantos (Mouthfeel Press), has poems appearing in The Texas
Weather Anthology, The San Pedro River Review, and Pilgrimage. She
is poetry editor for BorderSenses and writes with the Tumblewords
Project in El Paso, where she lives with her husband and her Belgian Shepherd
dog. Her next full-length collection, Flow, will be published in
2016 by Street of Trees Projects.
Susan Holm is a poet who lived and taught in
Turkey for a number of years. She recently retired from the faculty of Monmouth
College in Illinois where she taught languages.
