A Heavy Apple
Abraham Sutzkever 1913 (Belarus) – 2010 (Tel Aviv)
A heavy apple draws a full branch down with summer,
so it will know where to fall, an open hand grows up from the ground.
Like so, my soul, you bow ever lower, dumber,
loaded heavy with juice and time and fermenting beams of light.
You are also a fruit on a branch, in the garden of your keeper,
invisible as he who created you with ability to see.
And somewhere a child cries in its cradle and weeps bittersweetly…
Why, then, such a soul can be commanded by no other!
The heavy apple plays around with its shadow another moment longer,
like Don Quixote, a cloud rides by with a lance,
when the feet of the rain have trodden an entire night
the roots race, at a gallop, to be nourished beneath the grass.
And if you will tear yourself loose from the branch, back into mist,
loaded heavy with juice and time and fermenting beams of light,
recall how summer is drawn down by a heavy apple
that in falling is inherited by an open hand of the soil.
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Submitted by acronimous on January 31, 2021
Modified by acronimous on February 07, 2021
- 54 sec read
- 77 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | axaB axca axbx xBcc |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic octameter |
Characters | 931 |
Words | 181 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4 |
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"A Heavy Apple" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 9 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/61298/a-heavy-apple>.
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