Revisionist Poetry – The Apple Tree, v.5

Schooltime in early autumn;
the playground is full but hollow,
the out-of-bounds field calls, more tempting.

The field bristles with burrs and the hush of dying grass,
yet the apple tree insists, irresistible and small.

We climb to be kings on the age-old tree,
claiming crowns from the highest, wind-scarred branches.

Power is kept in an arsenal of apples—tokens of the season’s end,
all glossy, ripe, but bitter to the tongue.

Old ogres and crones pace the margins like slow funerals,
but the boldest cannot give up the small, absurd rites.

Only the sirens—the bell, the whistle, a mother’s sharp call—can call down the crowned,
but even that summons cannot take the tree’s stubborn grace.