Garden Bloggers' Muse Day ~ September 2010.

With apples very much in my activities and thoughts at the moment, I have gone fruity for my September muse ~ this poem celebrates our rich heritage of apple varieties ~ 


The Apple War

'The storm troops have landed,
The red and the green,
Their pips on their shoulders,
Their skin brilliantine.
Uniform, orderly,
Saleable, ambitious –
Sala and Granny
And Golden Delicious.
Quarter them, they’re tasteless;
They’ve cotton-wool juice,
But battalions of thousands
Routinely seduce.

In shy hen-haunted orchards
Twigs faintly drum,
Patient as partisans
Whose time has almost come,
From Worcester and Somerset,
Sussex and Kent,
They’ll ramble singing,
A fruity regiment.
Down with Cinderella’s kind,
Perfect toxic, scarlet;
Back comes the old guard
Costard, Crispin, Russet.
James Grieve, Ashmead Kernel,
Coppin, Kingston Black –
Someone has protected them.
They’re coming back.' 


~ UA Fanthorpe, 1929 - 2009

Garden Blogger's Muse Day is hosted on the first day of each month by Carolyn Choi over at Sweet Home and Garden Chicago.