Winter Apples, by Tricia Knoll

Apples with Leaves, by Seraphine Louis (France) c. 1930?

​Winter Apples
 
in tribute to Seraphine de Senlis
 
My apple was old but no less sweet
for having set on the checkered tablecloth
since before Christmas. A bit more pith,
a white inside slightly yellowed waiting
 
for that painting of the apples I ordered
this morning by the French painter
(pacing the border of madness 
with footsteps of a cleaning woman)
 
who splashed her apple tree with orange
and red and roots below ground
that bound it in the wind storm 
that grabbed apples and threw them
 
onto damp grass where the doe
and her fawn tiptoed with caution
(weighing smells in the wind) to eat 
so many apples, tart and wet. 

​Tricia Knoll 

Tricia Knoll is a Vermont poet whose next book Wild Apples (Fernwood Press, 2024) incorporates this image on the cover, a tribute to an artist of the past whose life and painting resonates with the poet as she writes about moving 3,000 miles to Vermont after downsizing.  Knoll is a Contributing Editor to Verse Virtual. Her work appears widely in journals and anthologies.  Website: triciaknoll.com