Still: The Journal

Connie Jordan Green

Ode to the Apple 

When you enter the delicate
        presence of the apple

you fall into the shine, through red,
        yellow, wandering among pale shades—

and the tree, the dappled tree
        of white and pink blooms,

cedar waxwings lined on a limb,
        petals beak to beak down the line—

and the first bite of apple
        like starburst on the tongue,

like seawater and salt
        and the freshest peas spilled

from the pod, and when
        apples fill a basket, when

ripe aroma rises from the pan
        and cinnamon and brown sugar

bubble into winter’s delicacy,
        when our bodies become the apples

gathered through our sweat,
        when starlight and moonlight

are sentinels seeing us safely
        on our way, and the apple waits—

oh delicate one, oh journey worthy
        of a thousand years, we embrace you.

~

Connie Jordan Green lives on a farm in East Tennessee where she writes and gardens. She is the author of two award-winning novels for young people, The War at Home and Emmy, published originally by Margaret McElderry imprint of MacMillan and Simon Shuster, respectively, reissued in soft cover by Tellico Books imprint of Iris Press; two poetry chapbooks, Slow Children Playing, 2007, and Regret Comes to Tea, 2011; and a poetry collection, Household Inventory, 2015, winner of the Brick Road Poetry Award. Her poetry has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, including previous issues of Still: The Journal. Since 1978 she has written a weekly newspaper column for The Loudon County News Herald. She leads writing workshops and teaches writing and literature courses for Oak Ridge Institute of Continued Studies. 

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