The Combustion Of Apples Poem by John Beaton

The Combustion Of Apples



Old Gravenstein, your boughs are scabbed and mossy
but you expand them graciously, a host
inviting passers-by to share the glossy
hospitality your bushels boast.

Your blossom spangled spring rain's spectrumed prism
and dropped; green stippled you and turned to reds
and golds. They coalesce—spring's pointillism
is smeared as autumn's flaring wildfire spreads.

Now fanning winds gust leaves—sparks float to earth
and apples fall like coals. They'll leave a tortured
candelabrum etched above a hearth
where ash still smokes—the frosted misty orchard.

Dusk. Across the mural of the sky
your portraitist depicts another scene:
he specks and flecks your boughs with nebulae
in blooms of carmine, salmon, gilt, and green.

And they too blend as space-dust avalanches
down columns light-years tall and then combines
in worlds that fall, like apples from your branches,
decaying as their core-stored sun declines.

Thus apple-trees and galaxies expire—
in dappled glades of universal fire.

The Combustion Of Apples
Saturday, September 1, 2018
Topic(s) of this poem: autumn,fall,galaxy,nebula
POET'S NOTES ABOUT THE POEM
By November, the old Gravenstein apple trees on our acreage have dropped their leaves for winter and we've harvested their fruit. This poem came to me while I was looking at one of them and thinking of Hubble telescope pictures of the Eagle Nebula, where new stars are being born in deep space. 

The first five stanzas each have four lines. Each line has five beats (e.g. old GRAVenSTEIN, your BOUGHS are SCABBED  and MOSSy) . The rhyme-scheme is abab, with a mix of single- and double-syllable pairs.  

The first three stanzas describe the apple tree and introduce the bridging images of artwork and fire. The next two stanzas begin with a one-word sentence to mark transition.  Then they step across the bridging images to the world of space. 

A rhymed couplet ties the apple tree and space subjects together and brings closure to the poem.  "Sound effects" include alliteration and internal rhyme (e.g. specks/flecks and tall/fall) .

This poem was first published in an e-book called "The Wolves Passed Here", which you can find . It has been republished elsewhere. 
COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Me Poet Yeps Poet 02 September 2018

my ENVIRONMENT POET DO READ SOME OF MINE O CANADIAN LOVELY RED APPLES I LOVE

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