Recipe for Apple Crisp

Author Abigail Knutson

Recipe for Apple Crisp

Abigail Knutson

To make my mother’s apple crisp,
begin by planting trees like my father did:
a hundred and twenty saplings,
just whisps of branches
with bundles of roots.
Give each child a shovel
and show them how deep to dig.
Plant over thirty varieties to grant
the longest picking season possible
and cross pollination
for healthy trees and fruit.
Sweet Sixteen
Haralson
Courtland
Fireside
Winesap
Each name is a song
the earth sang to me in childhood
full of lake breezes wafting the scent of clover
and alfalfa from fields encircling our home.
Those trees’ lives were in our hands:
we mowed between the rows, 
bought bees for pollination,
wrapped trunks in covers every winter
to keep rabbits from nibbling tender bark,
and watered for months until roots were deep enough
to siphon water from the ground.
Don’t forget the dark and fertile soil,
enriched by melting glaciers 
to make our apples
taste better than anywhere on earth.

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Poems & Paraboles publishes work that illuminates, awakens, or opens a small window toward wonder. Some pieces are quiet. Some are bold. Some carry a moral thread, while others wander into the mysterious and ethereal.

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