My Dad Had Apple Trees

My Dad Had Apple Trees

My dad had apple trees that he loved more than he did some of us

They were icy gray and dead to the touch in winter

The cold air froze them in place stagnant and quiet

But they were secretly alive and though they seemed barren and lost in February

Spring brought pink blossoms that were born from each colorless frame

An umbrella of soft pink skin from which juicy red fruit sprung by July

They just needed the time

 

My dad was a Minister of The Gospel

He believed in life everlasting and that God is Love

We ate his apples and marveled that he could manage such a process

With his head so far into the sky dreaming of a place that none of us could see

While the leaves turned glossy green and shielded us beneath each canopy

And the heart-shaped fruit grew and hung as heavy as the now pliant limbs

Could hold bent just above the warm dark turf

 

We never saw the connection between the eternal and the cyclical

That which is ever changing always evolving into the thing it already has been

Eternal is forever but is never the same from moment to moment

Except that it is exactly the way it was last year of the same season

It is the rolling wheel turning toward its own horizon growing until the end

Which is yet the beginning of what is to be as it was and will be again

This is the way of love and it lasts eternal but it is only the same for a moment

 

As are we—never ending ever changing forever and ever

Amen

Author: Don Edwards

On OMPJ 

Photo Credit: Skylar Zilka on Unsplash