Up the road I saw blackbirds on the edge of a pine box. When I got there the birds flew a few feet away, to the other side. I looked down in the box. There were red apples, ripe, with stems still on them. A sign on the box said Take One. So I took one. My, it was heavy, and when I bit into it, you would not believe such sweetness. I walked on, eating it down to the core. When I finished, I threw the core out over a cornfield. A bird flew to catch it before it hit the ground, but it fell anyway. The bird followed. And I stood there, not seeing anything but the stalks moving in the morning wind. I waited, and the bird came up, carrying the core. He flew off across the field, carrying this thing, about twice the size of his own head. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...YOUNG BLOOD by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET INEVITABLY (2) by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON TO ATLANTA UNIVERSITY - ITS FOUNDERS AND TEACHERS by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON DOWN BY THE CARIB SEA: 5. THE DANCING GIRL by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON ADMETUS; TO MY FRIEND RALPH WALDO EMERSON by EMMA LAZARUS |