Mellow gold skin
with a hot-flash blush
sprung in a wetland 
where wanderers dropped seed
or where neglect overcame
a pioneer orchard. Unkempt
volunteers respected
for hardiness, for serving
beyond their time.  

Come September, 
heavy-bearing limbs 
beckon, tease the doe
and taunt the coming snow. 

Wild apples. 
Is this who I am? 
No one’s necessity
ripening
to cider –

sweet,
then tart toast 
before it vinegars.
                        

Tattered monarchs head south over
Muddy Brook Reserve. One-way traffic. 
Adults on wing over shoulder-high goldenrod, 
purple and white asters. None of the milkweed
show tell-tale green and yellow-striped larvae;
too late for that. The dragonflies lack direction,
free-buzz like Harley guys out for a spin.
The monarchs aim for Mexico. 

And two weeks ago a baby was born.
Transformed. Water to air. Water to milk.
  Rolled up to rolled out. Thumped
to burp; new rules. Whispers
in an unbuffered ear about wanderers
changing the world. Cloud ogres wearing
pantaloons and boots. 

Without my doing anything more concrete
than wishing, little one, you transform me
into a grandmother, that benevolent force 
that must watch over some cocoons 
to help them become monarchs. 

One butterfly lands on a wild purple aster. 
I reach into my pocket for a cell phone
to grab a close-up of orange and black
on purple and green. Focus. The monarch
is gone. Nothing stands still. 

The course of “granding” teaches that I won’t see
everywhere you go and all you will become. 

So I witness and record this September afternoon 
when the monarchs knew what they had to do,
differing from what the dragonflies had to do. 
The day I peeled strips of birch bark to write a letter
to your grandfather. Magic is subtle. The cricket
drone is louder now than the mosquito’s whine.

May your peregrinations bring you one day 
to stand in a meadow like this shoulder-high
with goldenrod, smelling of gone-feral apple trees,
and gray dogwood berries turning purple.
                        

suckered up from below the graft
barely visible in lichen and skinny twigs
mountain bikers in gaudy helmets
stir the dust trail going by
you don’t remember who planted
who and no one remembers you
from the noon that the bee touches
the open blossom to leaf drop 
and your apple-rocks
tie onto withered limbs
striped a little green and red
but no one cares
for tastes of bitter apples
left behind 
the dogs aren’t fooled 
for tennis balls
the hikers want only view
to the river gorge
you, gnarly heritage relic, 
no baby spits your cinnamon sauce
not me, nor my friend
maybe the horses that made
the first trail ruts reached up
or tick-bitten deer follow midnight 
from the low rush shade
where your hill cleaves into wallow
yours is an ending-season realm 
of wasps, angry devils that suck
at dented holes in your puckered fruit
vampires that think you’re good
enough to rise up from below hard ground 
to taste-swarm leathered mummy skin.