Poem: Fruit of The City

Fruit of The City

Walking in the city
one day, a random
turn leads down
strange streets
to a neighborhood
filled with unknown
scents and the sounds
of a strange, unrecognized
language.  The streets
are line with carts,
merchants thrust
their wares out,
shouting about
the quality, the price
(even in a foreign
tongue, some things
communicate).

There are raw fish
still smelling of the sea,
strange frothy drinks
in bright colors
with candied fruit to garnish,
and stews that smell
of spice and meat.
Then, there it is:
an apple, simple
and perfect.  Why
of everything here
does this call out?
The woman at the stall
is ancient, but moves
swift and elegant
and she tosses the apple
onto a hanging scale,
she looks over, her eyes staring
deep, as though she must weigh
something more than the apple
to determine a fitting price.

The apple is put away
into a knapsack or
messenger bag, and is
forgotten, until that evening
at home.  It becomes a bedtime
snack, the core tossed
into that small waste bin
which shouldn’t really be used
for food at all.  It will have to be
emptied in the morning.

But then, a strange thing happens
in the night.  It seems, in the dark
like a fit of dreams, the ripping
noises, the climbing shadows,
but by morning, there is a tree,
taller than the house, it’s trunk
shoving the roof aside,
as though it were nothing.

It is a beautiful tree, many meters
high, and thick branched, with leaves
of vibrant, slick green.  Even so,
it is in the wrong place, it seems.

Experts are called to look,
but do not believe the story,
how could they?  It takes decades
for such a tree to grow, not
one night.  They cannot explain
how it could be in the bedroom,
ripping through the floor,
opening the ceiling with its wooden arms.
It is a hoax of some sort.

Never mind that: what to do with it?
They have no answer for that either:
The roots are deep under the house,
and the stump would be enormous,
even could the rest be, somehow,
removed without demolishing the home
in the process.  No, the tree will need to stay.

Instead, the room is given over to the tree,
moving to the guest room for the time.

An architect is brought in to do a retrofit,
as though the tree were a design feature.

But, then, the apples come, their smell
taking the air of the neighborhood
hostage.  They seem perfect,
beautiful.  Some are picked, eaten raw
or baked into pies.  None can be left
to fall, for fear that the next morning
an orchard will rip the remaining walls.
Neighbors are offered a share,
with the warning, but, of course,
no one listens.  Who would?
They should know, of course,
should have seen the tree emerge,
but who pays attention to such things?

The block is overrun with the trees
soon, apples growing all over.  Yards
are ornamented with forests,
and houses are bursting.  On the corner
three trees fight out the same skylight,
while next store, one giant dominates the den.

People begin to give up, to pack it in
and leave, giving up the neighborhood
to the trees.  They sell their homes,
or at least the land, though it is at a loss.
The only buyer is a very old woman
who does not speak English
and comes from a land no one has heard of.