FROM "A SEASONAL. RECORD"

Still driven by astonishment of destruction and renewal, I've gone down panting in the orchard, a fool in the snow sinking in the hollows, and more snow falling as I plod down the row of the counted and diminished. At the end a few clear limbs against the white population: one tree with a wealth of apples not touched in the ripe season. Having survived the leaves, the rain, and now blizzard, they bang on, each day turning a drier red, dark blood approaching I suppose some final black, though no true black exists in the plant kingdom.

The skin has withered around the juices, the fleshshrunk to a little sap, yet they are whole—these applesin their saving process of decay,red enough to disquiet the empty land.

EXCERPT FROM The Center for Cold Weather, by EnglishProfessor Cleopatra Mathis, Sheep Meadow Press, 1989.