The Apple Orchard (for Josephine MacDonald)

The trees in my orchard are coming down,
one by one as the quick seasons pass.
I did not own them but they were my own
when they cast cool shade on the green grass
of my growing. They seemed always old,
yet always were there for us to climb
in white-blossom spring and summerfold
and back-to-school days when every limb
hung out its harvest in the ripening sun. 

There were Yellow Transparents by late July,
Red Astrakhans then with their red-veined hearts,
hard little Crabapples hoarded for jelly, 
and Winter Apples at last, too tart
for us to eat but apt for pies.
Squat or tall, smooth-skinned or gnarled,
prickly or welcome, their canopies
were the roof-tree of my little world.
They’re coming down now, one by one.

And so, I will live with the lingering taste
of all those apples on my tongue.
And I in my turn may take my place
in the orchards of those who now are young.
And I will share whatever fruit
my branches bear as the quick seasons pass,
hang swings from my limbs, put forth new shoots,
be shade, not shadow, on their grass
until their orchard’s days are done
and the trees and the grass and the sun are one.

—Edward MacDonald

Edward MacDonald is a professor emeritus of history from UPEI and a recipient of the Order of Canada and the Order of PEI. His poetry collection, The Geography of Home: Poems from a Lost Time, is forthcoming in fall 2025.

Each month Bren Simmers selects a poem by an Island poet for The Buzz.