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Apple Poems

Apple Poems I went to buy apples at Hurricane Gap, I went for apples to sell and to barter, And O the high hills friendly to orchards, And O the fair trees sagging with riches, With Stayman and Winesap, Red Spy and Grimes Golden; I looked and I wondered and I stood beholden. That trip I hauled home two hundred bushels Of melt-in-your-mouth, of swallow-your-tongue-- Two hundred bushels of tooth-ticklers and grin-busters, And O the trip was a sight to the world, The journey a worldly wonder. II Two hundred measures of World Wonders and Sweet Rüsters, Now that they've set a standard for the apple By choosing its forebears and placing it on a diet And mellowing its shoulders red, yellow, or green According to chemi-fancy and current market fiat, And brought it to a norm in taste and dapple, It's hard to find a fruit that's individual. I praise the factory tree, the thirty-peck supremacy Over the ten-peck tree; I hail the standardization Of fruit as rounding as doorknobs, as waxy as wax (The eating's the thing, not the explanation); I acknowledge debt to the society of apples and facts, To men and grafts that made the tree a hummer, To pomological genius for developing a steady comer. My old-time trees are doubtful from season to season. Though usually they bear in vagrant wild-sweet unreason, My apples are those to eat for a taste of summer. --James Still I, copyright, New York Times, 1958. II, copyright, Atlantic Monthly, 1947. Reprinted by permission of the publishers. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Appalachian Review University of North Carolina Press

Apple Poems

Appalachian Review , Volume 4 (2) – Jan 8, 1976

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Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright © Berea College
ISSN
1940-5081
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

I went to buy apples at Hurricane Gap, I went for apples to sell and to barter, And O the high hills friendly to orchards, And O the fair trees sagging with riches, With Stayman and Winesap, Red Spy and Grimes Golden; I looked and I wondered and I stood beholden. That trip I hauled home two hundred bushels Of melt-in-your-mouth, of swallow-your-tongue-- Two hundred bushels of tooth-ticklers and grin-busters, And O the trip was a sight to the world, The journey a worldly wonder. II Two hundred measures of World Wonders and Sweet Rüsters, Now that they've set a standard for the apple By choosing its forebears and placing it on a diet And mellowing its shoulders red, yellow, or green According to chemi-fancy and current market fiat, And brought it to a norm in taste and dapple, It's hard to find a fruit that's individual. I praise the factory tree, the thirty-peck supremacy Over the ten-peck tree; I hail the standardization Of fruit as rounding as doorknobs, as waxy as wax (The eating's the thing, not the explanation); I acknowledge debt to the society of apples and facts, To men and grafts that made the tree a hummer, To pomological genius for developing a steady comer. My old-time trees are doubtful from season to season. Though usually they bear in vagrant wild-sweet unreason, My apples are those to eat for a taste of summer. --James Still I, copyright, New York Times, 1958. II, copyright, Atlantic Monthly, 1947. Reprinted by permission of the publishers.

Journal

Appalachian ReviewUniversity of North Carolina Press

Published: Jan 8, 1976

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