I’ve had a few apples turning up on the kitchen bench recently and yesterday picked up some windfalls to add to the pile. Aren’t new season’s apples just the best? I thought I’d share a seasonal poem, a good one to read while munching a crisp apple! Bob Orr, who lives on the Thames Coast, is well known for his water- and ocean-related poetry. This one, set in a Hamilton garden, was published in Bob’s 2008 collection Calypso (AUP) and appeared in the Best New Zealand Poems anthology for that year.
Kiwitahi Way by Bob Orr
An orchard
silvery and green
as a sunlit breaking sea.
The season
stands aside
to allow my grandfather
his harvest.
Over seventy
he climbs a ladder
and disappears
into an apple tree.
How they bounce
into an empty bucket.
Like somebody
calling my name
out in their sleep
over and
over
Robert
Robert
Sandra's Garden 