Nested Boxes

That old indifferent pervert with his ice
hid at forest edge as buds unwound

in an unsheltered swale of my spring field,

and ambushed them, unfruiting in a slice.

My old tree held its blossoms out, resigned
to vagaries of cycles in the wild
and tended then to making only leaves
because the fickle season changed its mind.

The petals pocked and fell like trust undone
while that indifferent pervert with the ice
retreated like a snake gone underground.
in one unshaded blast of April sun.

Now against a sky like frozen ground,
clouds retract and with them take the light.
Now the steady north wind scours away
the detritus of highest summer, downed,

and cardinals, disillusioned, disappear.
Now the knotted branches dangle bare
and migrant robins peck at frozen bark
because there is no apple fruit this year.

So Eve lies in my inner orchard now
listening as the words of Snakey bore
her pants off while she chews on painted fruit
spitting plastic seeds across the floor.

Then at battened doors I hear sharp knocks.
I open inner, outer, carefully.
In freezing drafts on rough, unwelcome floor
slides a bulging, beaten cardboard box.

Suspicious of some mockery implied,
I find a better looking inner box
then a flawless third box within that,
and slit the packing tape to look inside.

Suddenly like memory restored
the smell of harvest apples and the shine
of apples, perfect apples, everywhere,
offered up as patience’s reward.

Nested boxes like old stories teach
transcendences implicit more than vocal
for there are always apples somewhere else
and bad weather, like fruitlessness, is local.