Duane Anderson
Turning Ripe like the Apple
Man came from the seed.
Even the apple
once came from the seed,
planted in earth,
and watered
and warmed by the sun.
All this time the seed
grew into a tree,
taller over the years,
branches spreading,
blossoming.
Man eats of the apple.
As long as the apple has existed
man has eaten its fruit.
The apple does not know man
and never has,
both full of life,
both full of beauty.
The apple rots only if man lets it,
and man’s mind sometimes
follows the same path,
but it is not the apple’s fault.
The apple,
turning green,
turning yellow,
turning red,
always changing.
Man,
taste the fruit and know.
Turning Ripe like the Apple
Man came from the seed.
Even the apple
once came from the seed,
planted in earth,
and watered
and warmed by the sun.
All this time the seed
grew into a tree,
taller over the years,
branches spreading,
blossoming.
Man eats of the apple.
As long as the apple has existed
man has eaten its fruit.
The apple does not know man
and never has,
both full of life,
both full of beauty.
The apple rots only if man lets it,
and man’s mind sometimes
follows the same path,
but it is not the apple’s fault.
The apple,
turning green,
turning yellow,
turning red,
always changing.
Man,
taste the fruit and know.
Duane Anderson currently lives in La Vista, Nebraska, and volunteers with the American Red Cross as a Donor Ambassador on their blood drives. He has had poems published in Poetry Quarterly, Fine Lines, The Sea Letter, Cholla Needles, Wilderness House Literary Review, Adelaide Literary Magazine, and several other publications.