apple picking time

Funny how no matter what changes, some things stay the same.  Like apple picking.  Given the choice of simply purchasing a bag of apples at the store or picking my own, in the orchard, I will always choose the latter.  It just feels like the right way to welcome, officially, the autumn.  So, without further adieu, I post this year's pictures, sans korean student, but avec sarah's beautifully penned words (I hope she doesn't mind much).

Dad, Peeling Apples


The color of wheat

bread speckled

like the skin of a Golden Delicious,

freckles on top of freckles

and tiny nicks

from his knife, dots of blood

turned to brown scabs.

My father’s hands

have never changed. Every night

a different apple

skinned naked,



split and seeded without him

ever looking down, loving the fit

of apple

in the left hand, brown-handled

knife in the right.



He licks the tip of his finger

where the juice runs clear

and skewers a slice

for me, which I take



regardless

of whether I want

an apple or whether

the flesh has begun to brown

around the edges. When he is done,

knife set down and fingers wiped

clean against the legs

of his beige corduroys, I will take

the leathered back

of his hand to my cheek

and hold it there, begging

his weathered roots to spread

their soil-caked fingers

long and strong

as deep as the generations will go.



(By Sarah Small. Copyright 2000. First published in The Yalobusha Review.)

what a precious memory to share, with friends, across the miles.  this, too, I would forsake for the beauty of the mountains ... hills to call home.