I started reading Shel Silverstone to my son when he was barely old enough to talk. He could never understand why a single verse was called a poem, and a collection of poems was called Poetry. So he always called it poemtry, and somehow the name has stuck…
Anyway, I’ve been reading the Spoon River Anthology (that can be found here in its entirety) and came across this verse;
Conrad Siever
| NOT in that wasted garden | |
| Where bodies are drawn into grass | |
| That feeds no flocks, and into evergreens | |
| That bear no fruit— | |
| There where along the shaded walks | 5 |
| Vain sighs are heard, | |
| And vainer dreams are dreamed | |
| Of close communion with departed souls— | |
| But here under the apple tree | |
| I loved and watched and pruned | 10 |
| With gnarled hands | |
| In the long, long years; | |
| Here under the roots of this northern-spy | |
| To move in the chemic change and circle of life, | |
| Into the soil and into the flesh of the tree, | 15 |
| And into the living epitaphs | |
| Of redder apples! |
For some reason, that verse strikes my fancy.
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