The Old Apple Tree

Growing up, we had chickens, two apple trees, a pear tree, a mandarine tree, a lemon tree, onions, capsicums, carrots, an almond tree, potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, corn … there was always something my mother was harvesting. She was a farm girl in the city.

A big regret of mine is I didn’t appreciate it at the time, though I do remember tea parties under the lemon. I remember summers-full of mandarines stuffed in my pockets. I remember the flowers of the onions. I remember eating the un-ripe nuts of the almond – there’s a time when they’re nearly ripe that the green nuts are delicious. I wish I’d paid more attention. Kids, you know. My mother loved roses, too, and irises, and nasturtiums. One of her biggest joys was planting something and watching it grow. She was a cuttings-queen.

Thinking about our mini-orchard, I went looking for some poetry about the feelings that arose from these childhood memories. I found this lovely poem which captures so many images, a mood, a connection. This poem was written more than a hundred years ago by a poet with a very different life experience to mine, but I hear him.

The Old Apple-Tree

    There’s a memory keeps a-runnin’
    Through my weary head to-night,
    An’ I see a picture dancin’
    In the fire-flames’ ruddy light;
    ‘Tis the picture of an orchard
    Wrapped in autumn’s purple haze,
    With the tender light about it
    That I loved in other days.
    An’ a-standin’ in a corner
    Once again I seem to see
    The verdant leaves an’ branches
    Of an old apple-tree.

    You perhaps would call it ugly,
    An’ I don’t know but it’s so,
    When you look the tree all over
    Unadorned by memory’s glow;
    For its boughs are gnarled an’ crooked,
    An’ its leaves are gettin’ thin,
    An’ the apples of its bearin’
    Would n’t fill so large a bin
    As they used to. But I tell you,
    When it comes to pleasin’ me,
    It’s the dearest in the orchard,–
    Is that old apple-tree.

    I would hide within its shelter,
    Settlin’ in some cosy nook,
    Where no calls nor threats could stir me
    From the pages o’ my book.
    Oh, that quiet, sweet seclusion
    In its fulness passeth words!
    It was deeper than the deepest
    That my sanctum now affords.
    Why, the jaybirds an’ the robins,
    They was hand in glove with me,
    As they winked at me an’ warbled
    In that old apple-tree.

    It was on its sturdy branches
    That in summers long ago
    I would tie my swing an’ dangle
    In contentment to an’ fro,
    Idly dreamin’ childish fancies,
    Buildin’ castles in the air,
    Makin’ o’ myself a hero
    Of romances rich an’ rare.
    I kin shet my eyes an’ see it
    Jest as plain as plain kin be,
    That same old swing a-danglin’
    To the old apple-tree.

    There’s a rustic seat beneath it
    That I never kin forget.
    It’s the place where me an’ Hallie–
    Little sweetheart–used to set,
    When we ‘d wander to the orchard
    So ‘s no listenin’ ones could hear
    As I whispered sugared nonsense
    Into her little willin’ ear.
    Now my gray old wife is Hallie,
    An’ I ‘m grayer still than she,
    But I ‘ll not forget our courtin’
    ‘Neath the old apple-tree.

    Life for us ain’t all been summer,
    But I guess we ‘we had our share
    Of its flittin’ joys an’ pleasures,
    An’ a sprinklin’ of its care.
    Oft the skies have smiled upon us;
    Then again we ‘ve seen ’em frown,
    Though our load was ne’er so heavy
    That we longed to lay it down.
    But when death does come a-callin’,
    This my last request shall be,–
    That they ‘ll bury me an’ Hallie
    ‘Neath the old apple tree.

-Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872- 1906). Poem in the public domain. More on the poet here.