Quert/Apple

 

When planting, the ground should be neither frozen, nor too wet. As for love,

it is much the same; the heart will not flourish where it cannot set root or where it drowns, smothered by mud and unable to breathe. There must be freedom and space, an openness into which love can spill and seep, flow and settle, solidifying into an anchor that will not let go, no matter the storm.

Planted at just the right moment, the heart will reach out to the earth and to the sky, bridging the chasm with a subtle exchange of breath, of life, connected by the love of one for another begun in the perfect time. Nourished by the soils and the winds, the heart will bear its sweet apples, blushing red, crisp, ripe with substance and juice.

Too often, we plant in the wrong season; we drop the seeds in the wet, desperate moments of autumn, afraid that we will be without fruit in the future, or we lay the seedlings in spring, when only the topsoil is ready and the deeper strata remain frozen, undiscovered by warmth and unable to give way to the gentle root.

When planting, the ground should be neither frozen, nor too wet, as for love.

Adam Robersmith has been writing fiction, non-fiction, and poetry for publication since 1995, with local, regional, national, and web credits to his name. His work can be seen online at The Harrow (2001 Fiction Archive, Salem, by A.R. Smith) and in the archives at Tales from a Small Planet (Poetry Archives-April 2001, Three Poems from Ireland, by A.R. Smith). His current projects include Grove, a chapbook of twenty poems, including "Quert/Apple" and final revisions on his first novel, The Agony of Sunlight.

He has been the writer and editor for the Ithaca Urban Renewal Agency, and has also designed and edited a chapbook of poetry and prose entitled Thaw and Flood for the Cayuga Nature Center in honor of the Center's 25th anniversary. Robersmith has also been the staffwriter for TRACKS, the newsletter of the Rosamond Gifford Zoo at Burnet Park, and a regular contributor to the Finger Lakes Wine Gazette.