Spring from the Core: Rebirth of the Big Apple
Blight upon the fruit,
Dismem-
berment by jaws of malice,
Release a connate alchemy from juice of nature’s chalice.
Inconsolable grief salts the tartness
And the storm of rage then foams the brine,
But the cider’s rooted sweetness effects as anodyne.
Up through founded roots
The same vitality that founded
Returns by tragic summons
Catastrophically far sounded.
Energies yet bleeding
From the fruit’s raw, shredded core
Convert to dear elixir
Extolled as ancient lore:
That tonic sought by vanities
But never found by greed;
That profound renaissance
That formulates from need.
And the greater the need,
The greater the transfusion
Of chlorophyllous blood into doom;
Thus the greater the transformation
From blight back to bloom.
Irrigated by rains and frost of
Blood, sweat, and tears;
Fertilized by excrement of brave, digested fears,
The veins in metropolitan network
Engorge with vernal charge
Pushing upward the constant rite of birth
That self-exists at large.
Each gossamer blossom,
Each sprig of green,
Each eternal, predictive seed
Restores the honeyed virtue to long-fermented mead.
Soon a fanning foliage
Again fruited with trade and culture
Proves the legend of the apple – not carrion for any vulture.
In the shine of the Big Red Apple –
In the healthy stripe of its skin –
One can see brightly reflected
The lights of life again.
An Empire State
Built to withstand bolts of lightning, terror, and more,
Towers within its nation as prosperity’s metaphor:
The invincible soul of spring self-eternal within its core.
– Mary Jo Magar –