🌱 Thank You For The Apples
Kissing the Earth #20
We’re midway through our month of nature prayers - today’s poem contains apples & trees. Instructions for the Kissing the Earth challenge are here, you can start your month any time. You can find all the daily poems here. Join me at 8am UK time every morning to hear the poem read out loud and to share silence with us - more information here - just drop in. Thanks for coming along!
Small Prayer
Thank you for the apples like berries
that color the trees and the sky.
I want to leap and talk
and then sleep in the air
where your fruits ripen and dance.
Mother of earth, this is my prayer!
Oh yes — at night
when we turn from father light
please cover my cloud bed
with your phosphorescence.
Thank you for your apples.
~ Scott Chaskey
I feel a little uncomfortable writing an accompaniment to today’s poem, as yesterday I threw an apple in the bin.
I had bought it from the supermarket that morning and it looked so promising - a glossy, rosy red. I imagined the crisp sweetness of the white flesh inside.
When I sliced into it I could tell straight away - it was slightly yellowing, floury, soft.
Nature is like this. It’s not like chocolate bars, which we buy with a certainty about what’s inside the wrapper. It doesn’t have the same predictable reliability as our toasters, our freezers, our cars.
Thank goodness.
Later this year there will be apples from our new tree in the temple garden. How big will they be? Will they be tasty, will they be sweet? That will depend on the weather, the soil, all these things that I can’t control, all these conditions that come together and often gift us with deliciousness.
I’m happy with the odd not-so-good apple. It reminds me of the unnaturalness of supermarkets, of how spoilt for choice most of us are these days, and of how dependent we are on dear Earth. I thank it as sits in our compost bin, waiting to go back into the ground.
Go gently,
Satya 💚
Featured piece:
has charisma coming out of his ears, although he’s also very modest so probably wouldn’t admit to it. He writes about work, love and nature, and today’s piece is about TREES.
My ancient apple tree gives ample shade but dappled light. It sheds small applets (is that a word?) at this time of year as the weather warms. Yes they go back into the earth via my wild patch, gratefully received. Later in the year if any drop they are sliced in two and composted. So thanks for the apples Satya.
I threw an apple away yesterday too. It was too sharp and juicy. I like the floury soft ones (the soft red ones were always my favourite but you don’t seem to get them anymore). Lovely poem.