Heirlooms 2020          for The Lost Apple Project

Homesteader Eve knew many Edens
Struck with Trees of Life
And Trees of Foreknowledge,
She broadcast apple seeds in ravine,
Grafted whips to rootstock,
Planted pommes for all seasons:
Yellow Transparent, a June apple
White when fully ripe,
Ralls Genet, mottled green apple,
Late bloomer, spring-frost hardy,
Johnson's Fine Winter, amber,
Lopsided, sublime.
Today a remnant tree is found
In remote gulch,
Well branched being,
Foliage, coriaceous,
Strung with Seek-No-Further,
--Its fragrance brand-new--


Laura Stickney 2020


Notes:

Image: The Tree of Life, 1854,
by Hannah Cohoon, ink & watercolor

The Lost Apple Project is a nonprofit
organization that hunts down abandoned
farms and orchards to find old apple
varieties thought to be extinct.

Pommes: French word for apples

Yellow Transparent, apple, 1870

Ralls Genet, apple, 1800

Johnson's Fine Winter, apple, 1800's

Seek-No-Further, apple, 1796

Coriaceous: Leathery