PAD Challenge day 27:For today’s prompt, write a looking back poem. Of course, some people
just glance over their shoulders, and others stop and turn all the way
around. Some look back in time and weigh their successes and failures,
evaluate things they could do better. Some claim they never look back.
Whatever your stance on looking back, capture it in a poem today.
The Harvest-apple tree on the old home place.
How well I remember its petal-snow, before the dirt floor was covered in golden fruit, gathered up in our cotton-dress 'baskets' carried to the house for apple goodies, but mostly canned apple sauce.
In time we all took that slow slope leading
From childhood’s home, past the gnarled apple tree
Standing post in the sun-dappled garden
Like a sprawling, echo-laden sentry
We did not recognize the honeyed spoon
Stirring the air where a big, blue sky-drain
Sipped summer’s long willow-song afternoon
Like sweet tea steeped in life’s Never Again
Youth’s come-and-get-me call tugged at our dreams
We did not know then, what we did not know
Perception fairly bursting at the seams
With everything we thought life had to show
So, one by one, each sibling slid away
First, from mother’s kind, cotton-apron knee
To the floor, to the door to ‘I want more’
Than four-walled, clock-stalled nevermore-will-be
In looking back, I lack the words to tell
If time could reverse, where I first would reach
But one thing I now recognize full-well
My, what a lot of lessons life must teach
© Janet Martin
