Thus he names the season,
my nephew, riding on the back
of the bike, a red helmet wrapped around
his tiny head, full of growing seeds.
When his father takes him
down this bowl-shaped road,
he knows the destination is a field
of fallen fruit, free to pick,
and so he presses against my back,
as if feeling for the bruises
and tells me these are apple days,
not knowing what I don’t know.
When his mother kneels with him
beside the green apples innocently
strewn like his three-year old toys
over the newborn grass,
does he know that the tree
also kneels with him, shades him
with the end of summer leaves, before
casting away the heavy fruit?
I took the branches leading home,
and learned that I was already
a tree, still budding white flowers
the pink tinge of spring now fading.
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So this last Sunday I was riding a bike with my 3 year old nephew in a kid's seat and we were having a heart to heart talk. Really, it sort of surprised me how in depth our conversation was considering the boy's age. But anyway, on the course of the ride, he started telling me about his apple days, when he would go and pick apples with Mommy and Daddy. I couldn't help but be reminded of the famous Shakespeare quote "My salad days, when I was green in judgement." I almost considered putting that line in with the poem as an epigraph (should I?). Later, I found out that he was talking about that because he's used to his parents taking him to pick apples whenever they go on a bike ride together (I didn't know, so of course we didn't go pick apples). Later, while I was thinking about the experience, I decided I ought to write a poem about it, and so I did. Hope you've enjoyed it! Does it end too soon? If you have any comments on that or anything else about it, let me know :)
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