Fallen Apples

Trees sigh and shed tears of yellow leaves onto the breeze. 

Sad, for the passing of summer.

The leaves having soaked the lemony summer sunshine up

Into their veins, yet in vain

For the sun is not eternal, and none of us are immune from dying. 

Except, perhaps, the thousands year old boulder excavated a hundred years ago, where I sit, holding an apple up to my nose, eyes closed. (You can’t really smell an apple unless your eyes are closed) Cinnamon, clove, citrus and the earthy scent of raw honey. 

Red jewels with shiny skins the apples lie in the golden and green grass like treasures. Prepared for sweetness, I bite the smooth hard skin and it bursts beneath my teeth with a snap and a flood of tartness breaks the spell the scents have put me under. 

Autumn has crept up as usual, to spring in front of us and wave her red-gold-orange-flag to dazzle by day and enchant by night with a crisp diamond studded sky, as if winter is not far behind. 

I can’t stop the seasons.

But I can still take the broken apple to the barn and share it with my friends, the horse, and the donkey, and we can still bathe in the warm honey sunshine. 

See the dust rise up from the hay bales and dance in that last fools gold light of summer.