Poems by John Pilkey
          Sir Edward Burne-Jones. The Garden of the Hesperides (1870-77)



Let's walk together where apples fall
where heels imitate each rolling ball
and let the shaded grass say what it will
about the shadows that our heels kill.

These apples now are falling, not ourselves.
We've joined the company of triumphant elves,
whose histories consist of present glory
and threading shadows in a quiet hurry.

Seduction cannot catch the wholesome free,
who pass through orchards heedless tree by tree
and soundless trample sorrow's sleeping floor
past asking from the orchard apples more.

This useless fruit can nourish wind and worm
and sometimes stuff the howlings of a storm
but cannot stop bright mouths that know no hunger
or trip the feet whose joy lies in danger.

And so let's walk together where the grass
reflects soft soles of everlasting brass
through shadows that cannot withstand their fire
but shimmer at hot steps that never tire.


John Davis Pilkey

Orchard