why was the tangled grass so green
beneath the cracked and dying canopy
of the failing apple tree
where the fleshy fruit now lies?

there in the knowing shade i can see
this feeding rot and sweet decay;
where, underlying it all, a mass
of honest life – of grass, of worms and flies

i wonder now at what might come
when the tree is wrecked and gone…
will vitality burst and squirm forth as much
with no end in sight, no sunset before my eyes?