Poems November 1986
Windfalls
Windfalls, we called them, the apples
we gathered, my grandmother and I.
Sharp or sweet from tree to tree, apple to apple,
we cooked them with their jackets on for color,
filled jars of them
seasoned with cinnamon and sugar, the gift
from the side of the road.
You could hope for it
the rest of your life, things
coming together out of the blue,
like apples and wind, like words.
You could mistake it
for water, the wind building in the trees,
gathering the way a wave gathers
until it passes over your head.
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This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 5 Number 3, on page 51
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