Skip to main content

Apples

 




One day I shall sleep

in the shade of an orchard

where wisdom has grown

unnoticed. An apple falls

releasing a thought.

Surprised, I recall how

old laws are discovered.

 

There are rich pickings

for hens round rough trunks

of old sagging apple trees

acquainted with gravity.

So here I will sleep

like a satisfied scientist

with new knowledge.

 

Orchards are peaceful places, especially on a sunny early autumn day.

Perhaps the awareness that the year is drawing to a close, finding fulfilment in all this fruition suggests that work’s been done.

Or maybe it’s even something to do with that unnoticed sense of gravity pulling one down which Sir Isaac Newton claimed he encountered in his orchard.

One way and another, this is a time and place of rest.

For us, as well as apples...

For me, to sit against an apple trunk, or even lie, and think of nothing very much is indeed restful.

On the other hand for Newton, it was more likely the beginning of a massive – dare I say weighty? – piece of work. His orchard with its falling apples set him off on a trajectory of discovery of new knowledge, and of ancient laws.

As for the apples, they quietly continue to grow, just as unnoticed as the laws of gravity were before Newton started thinking that day in his orchard.

And, in their own time, they fall; being subject to gravity, they end up on the earth.

Their trees too – they themselves sag, or even assume the horizontal.

As for me, I too find myself drawn downwards, leaning comfortably, my thoughts released and falling to the ground. Not a bad place to fall asleep, whether or not I’ve managed to discover any new knowledge.

I hope Newton found satisfaction, and that he slept soundly.




Comments

  1. Luna North2 October 2022 at 21:47

    I enjoyed picturing you under the apple trees, pondering time and gravity.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous1 November 2022 at 12:01

      Lovely. Your poem provokes the thought: drooping, sagging, lying down to rest…also has its laws. There is a downward psychological pull. Differently , we meet Sir Isaac again! to ponder this other law. Under the same shady apple tree! Best wishes and thank you dear poet Richard. Harbans Nagpal.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rake Daddy Rake

  As with lots of good stories, there are many versions. Basically this one's about a pair of Wiltshire yokels raking a pond for kegs of smuggled brandy.  They feigned lunacy when surprised by the excise men, saying that they were trying to rake out the full moon which was reflected in the water.  Their ruse was successful. The officials had no trouble in deciding they were lunatics, so left them to their raking. Interestingly, the Lunacy Act of 1842 defined a lunatic as someone ‘afflicted with a period of fatuity in the period following a full moon’. I suppose any time falls into the category of a 'period following a full moon'.  As for fatuity, that might include all of us on certain occasions, not least since it's not stated how long 'a period' is.  Perhaps then we're all occasionally lunatic... Be all that as it may, on this occasion the lunatics (I've put inverted commas round the word and taken them out several times) outwitted the sober and sane, ...
4 comments
Read more

The Three Hares

  The Three Hares We continue on our way running, running, running around held together tip to tip so I can hear what she can hear as well as her. And the other follows me in front of her – we are joined up by our ears so we follow, lead and follow running, running, running around we continue on our way. Running, running, running around – no cause for worry – what's to come has already been. The future's past – watch us here – we're going nowhere – the last is first and first is last. Our present moment sees us still although we seem to race – running, running, running around we continue. On our way running, running, running around hearing your persistent questions – why do you keep on asking? We cannot tell you any more. May you share your senses and find soft silence at your centre which is so close, while you go on running, running, running around. The turning of the year, with the various thoughts about the past and the future that c...
2 comments
Read more

The Beginning of Time

  Which beginning of time [the Creation] according to our Chronologie, fell upon the entrance of the night preceding the twenty third day of October in the year of the Julian Calendar, 710 [i.e. B.C. 4004].   The Annals of the World (1658), p.1 Archbishop James Usher 1581-1656   Yes, anything, even time itself must start somewhere, somewhen – a beginning at a point in time is not an easy calculation   when nothing was and something is, with so much yet to come. All of which we now know well – us who had our own beginnings.     Time began on the night before the twenty third day of October four thousand and four years BC. Do not ask what may have occurred   in those earlier blackberry days. October's a month of beginnings and ends. The swallows have flown.  The fieldfares are here. My sums are done.  Now to make a new start. I spent some time – time again! – searching for an appropriate picture to precede this poem...
2 comments
Read more