Thursday, December 14, 2017

Remembering Fruit




We picked apples off
the trees of my childhood,
driving into the country
on Sunday afternoons
to see the springtime blossoms.

We chased each other
through the rows,
two small sisters
in Sunday dresses,
reaching up, with delight,
allowed to choose
one firm, fresh apple
from the tree.
Life was simpler then,
and kind.

Now condominiums sprout
where once the orchards bloomed.
One by one, 
the loved old houses 
disappear.

In the small house
where I raised
my four children,
the back yard was all garden.
In summer, the table groaned
with watermelon, cantelope and honeydew,
grapes, and plums and apricots,
strawberries, luscious red,
juice dripping down our chins.

The house and garden is gone now,
replaced by a monster house,
my children's ghostly laughter
still echoing down the years.

We picked apples off
the trees of my childhood.
Now condominiums sprout
where once the orchards
bloomed.


for Sanaa's prompt at Real Toads:  Of Poems and Fruit



15 comments:

  1. This is so poignant, Sherry. With time people have forgotten the importance of nature and gifts which it has to offer. I love the image of you and your sister choosing fresh apples.. and felt sad at ghostly laughter still echoing.. sigh.. Beautifully penned. Thank you so much for writing to the prompt❤️

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  2. Your write is chilling for me. I am covered with goosebumps. Everything changes,nothing stays the same.

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  3. Oh, the apple trees of childhood. Those apples were the best! It is sad that things have to change in the name of so-called progress.

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  4. Sweet and nostalgic; Sherry

    much love...

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  5. KInda along the lines of my Nepal poem the other day. Progress steals. Progress kills. Ache.

    I miss Florida. We had an orange tree, a banana tree and a lime tree. Its actually the limes I miss the most. My son and I used to eat oranges on Saturday mornings and watch the lake wake up.

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  6. This is sweet and sado. Beautiful memories of when nature enriched your life. Oh modern world....what have we done!

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  7. This is so full of sadness. It seems the goid times have gone the way of those apple trees.

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  8. Life was simpler then,
    and kind.

    I also miss the days when I could pick fruit from a tree in my back yard, although I do have pomegranates which soothes my soul.

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  9. This brings such beautiful memories of my own childhood gardens to mind. I love the way you use repetition with the close.

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  10. Progress isn't always a curse, but when it's badly done (and goodness is has been terribly done) it comes the worse of thieves, leaving everything soul-barren, screaming, and wishing for yesterday...

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  11. I'm sure you remember "they tore down paradise and put up a parking lot." (Big yellow taxi) We had one fruit tree in our yard, a cherry tree. For the privilege of calling it mine I was allowed to pick all the cherries.
    ..

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  12. Progress always brings down the memories first... and orchards seems to be the first to go.... sad

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  13. Thank you, Sherry! I am nervous to go back to my childhood home. So, much has changed~ I do miss the ease of a gentler time-when neighbors were extended family~ I love your poem

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  14. it seems as a society, we've lost sight of what's truly important

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