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[This poem won the Yearly Contest of the Women Poets of New York, 1986. – Ed.]
My Firstborn Picks an Apple
One day in apple country on a small hill dappled with afternoon, the light stood still.
Windfall about our steps dimpled the grass eloquent in praise of things that pass
while overhead the season moved without haste teaching a kind of patience sweet to the taste.
Four of us linked together combed that hillside, your father and I, you and your bride
sharing your single apple down to the core, ourselves whole as good fruit. Who could ask more
than such an hour, such hands to hold, walking in apple weather, harvesting gold?
Rhina P. Espaillat
From Landscapes with Women: Four American |
