I know this road as well as any.

It has carried me many times

to and from places I’ve called home.

I can trace its tale in my mind, marking the punctuation

of junctions and services.

Domino

Still,

it’s hard to say when I first noticed the apple trees.

Limelight

Perhaps it was a long time ago,

when I was still a passenger.

Underleaf

When a flash of red or yellow blurred past the window.

Pigeon Rouge

It would have been September,

when the boughs are weighted with fruit,

and windfalls collapse on the hard-shoulder.

Newton Wonder

The noticing was just the beginning -

the germination of an idea

that has lately demanded closer attention.

Gulval Seedling

Now, when I drive this road towards the end of Summer,

I keep one eye on the verge,

Oaken Pin

watching for the jewel clusters

on each laden tree,

mapping the extent of a great,

unharvestable

orchard.

Missing Link

Unharvestable,

except that stranded travelers

might ind themselves sheltering

under a drooping, fruit-heavy branch,

waiting

for recovery.

Court Pendu Plat

Would they be tempted to pick those fruits;

offering

a small consolation for the broken-down?

Not for the rest of us though.

We have to keep moving.

Wagener

I wonder how the trees were planted.

Grand Sultan

I like to believe they sprouted from cores

thrown from passing cars,

Forge

by hundreds of unwitting Johnny Appleseeds,

all sowing trees whose fruit

is destined to rot

alongside less biodegradable jetsam.

Maggie Grieve

I wonder if some of these trees

might be vestiges,

Duchess of Oldenburgh

of cider orchards long since grubbed up?

Foxwhelp

Like the orchards that flanked my dad’s childhood home.

Senescent even then,

and still bearing enough apples to pay a gardener’s salary,

and a half-firkin of cider from the press.

Peasgood Nonsuch

Tots from the barrel were wages for my dad and his siblings -

sent to shake the gnarled trees and ill the hessian bags

until they were sour and raw and sweet.

Sack and Sugar

My grandma considered cider “natural”,

and therefore “wholesome”,

regardless of alcohol

content.

Mère de Ménage

She took the occasional tot herself and lived a hundred years;

rosy,

speckled

and puckered

as the apples she laid out

on newspapers, to keep over winter.

Longbider

The smell

of sleeping bramleys

permeated that childhood,

and then my own.

Cornish Aromatic

I confess:

one Christmas day, aged ten, I cut my initials into the bark of the old, bare apple

tree in the garden with my new Swiss Army Knife.

When the tree woke in spring the letters swelled and scarred and what had been

a declaration of dominion became one of guilt.

But I was still glad of the bond after all,

whether it was tied with pride or shame.

Tyler’s Kernel

I took apples as a birthright.

Then, fifteen years ago, while eating one,

my lips started to swell and my throat pulled close and tight.

Crawley Reinette

It seemed impossible,

but the symptoms were undeniable,

and they got worse.

Costard

Some piece of my biology had mistaken friend for foe, and nothing I could do

would set it right.

The blacklist grew: pears, peaches, plums, apricots, hazelnuts, carrots... a whole

garden of allergies,

but loosing apples felt personal.

Dr. Cliford

And it might have been around this time that I started to think more about those

trees beside the motorway.

Schoolmaster

Perhaps because all apples were now out of bounds those that had always been

beyond reach came into sharper focus.

Carnation Rose

I was taught the story of the garden of Eden in Sunday school,

Gloria Mundi

so I know what an apple can signify.

Venus Pippin

I learned somewhere else, that the Bible doesn’t name the fruit of the tree of

knowledge.

Pig’s Snout

That came later, when scribes translated the texts into Latin, and couldn’t resist

the temptation

of wordplay.

Don’s Delight

“Malus” - apple

“Malum” - evil

They punned the tree to it into the story of the fall of mankind.

Coe’s Golden Drop

Older myths also set inaccessible apples to be guarded by powerful gods and

monsters.

King’s Acre Bountiful

Prizes beyond reach,

Scilly Pearl

or invitations

Jolly Beggar

to banishment.

Hoary Morning

And now, I’m beginning to see

I’ve cast these roadside apples

Tom Putt

into my own mythology of exile.

Siberian Bittersweet

A story I tell myself,

about leaving the countryside for the city;

Newtown Pippin

getting caught in a stream of constant motion towards an uncertain destination;

Archimedes

becoming separated from simple pleasures and comforts.

Bossom

When I see the trees

I sometimes think I could stop,

Nonpareil

climb over the barriers,

that divide the road from the land,

Peacemaker

eat the apples,

Quench

and see what happens.

Climax