Apple Eternity: Half Whole Apples

In a wood there stands an orchard

And swollen beneath its bough - golden, green and red;

An apple - though worn, froths and sweats -- 

Juice like summer rain.

The apple: not quite round.

Not quite whole.

Not quite half-eaten.

It is proud.  I can almost hear it: 'I'm an apple.'

I study the not quite round shape;

Contemplate the fact it is not quite whole;

Not quite half-eaten.

And the more I think of it, the less apple there is.

It doesn't quite reach the borders.

Perhaps it's not quite an apple.

But it's not an elephant;

It's not a goldfish.

Each speck - magnified -- joined like stars.

An ancient voice speaks -

Some other-worldly language

And suddenly it's not quite not an elephant;

Not quite not a goldfish.

So, just to look, or say that it's an apple isn't enough.

Doesn't make the scent hang in the breeze;

Doesn't make the light -- like a winter's daydream -- the golden, green and the red.

Perhaps written from the shade;

Sounded from the hill;

To be seen with ears -- touched by sight.

If it could speak, perhaps it would say, 'I am an apple:

I live here, beneath this bough;

Strawberry red, grassy mist, elephant stem and golden fish.

Neither epitome nor epithet.'

Then to see with my ears, or touch with sight wouldn't be enough.

The apple: Elusive as the world, hanging on promises of the orchard.

A half-hidden isometric.

These words are arbitrary;

Like apple picking at night;

It comes to nothing more than a childish game.

For here, there are no words, 

No pictures to prove this moment was ever mine.

Tomorrow, the edges will be holes.

Edges -- walls -- specked with Frost.

No cows or hills will cross us over.

Other apples will fill the outline

And birth an apple eternity.

But I'll be deep in the woods then.