A Bit of Sunday Poemtry

I started reading Shel Silverstone to my son when he was barely old enough to talk. He could never understand why a single verse was called a poem, and a collection of poems was called Poetry. So he always called it poemtry, and somehow the name has stuck...

Anyway, I've been reading the Spoon River Anthology (that can be found here in its entirety) and came across this verse;

Conrad Siever

NOT in that wasted garden
Where bodies are drawn into grass
That feeds no flocks, and into evergreens
That bear no fruit—
There where along the shaded walks	5
Vain sighs are heard,
And vainer dreams are dreamed
Of close communion with departed souls—
But here under the apple tree
I loved and watched and pruned	10
With gnarled hands
In the long, long years;
Here under the roots of this northern-spy
To move in the chemic change and circle of life,
Into the soil and into the flesh of the tree,	15
And into the living epitaphs
Of redder apples!

For some reason, that verse strikes my fancy.