Frosted Fruit
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Frosted Fruit
Between the end of color and the start of silence
there is a pause—
a breath caught in the throat of the world.
Apples cling to the trees,
their skins gone translucent,
flesh turned to glass under the first steady frost.
The deer come closer now,
muzzles steaming in the sharp air,
their teeth cracking sweetness from rot.
The fields are a memory of gold,
the stalks brittle, whispering
like the sound of someone folding a letter they’ll never send.
Crows work the edges of the orchard,
black punctuation against the white grammar of frost.
Their calls sound like old hinges—
metal learning to live with cold.
In the ditch, a single thistle wears a crown of ice.
Each barb perfect, cruel,
beautiful the way endings sometimes are.
The brook has not frozen yet,
but it moves slower,
thick with thought,
the kind that comes just before sleep.
Every morning, the sun struggles
to lift itself over the hills,
lays its pale hand on everything
and fails to warm it.
You can smell the turn between seasons—
ferment, smoke, the ghost of apples,
the sharp clean note
that means winter has seen you
and is walking your way.
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This Micro Season shared with those fecund folks over at DVerse Poets Pub.
Ah, Chris, frosted fruit is very special, and it doesn’t last long, so is an excellent name for a micro season. I love the opening lines so much! And those fields, ‘a memory of gold’ and the crows, ‘black punctuation against the white grammar of frost’, and these lines:
ReplyDelete‘ferment, smoke, the ghost of apples,
the sharp clean note
that means winter has seen you
and is walking your way.’
This is a wonderful micro-season... I know that it is coming. I love how you have used the images of natures as metaphor for life which actually made me think of some of Tranströmer's poems...
ReplyDeleteLike for instance this: the stalks brittle, whispering
like the sound of someone folding a letter they’ll never send
"winter has seen you
ReplyDeleteand is walking your way."
Luv this
Much♡love