Pearl’s Poems
“An Apple Never Picked”
This poem was inspired while sitting across from my friend at a Huden Dining Hall table, just a few days before the recent NAACP Pie and Poetry event. I was desperately trying to come up with a poetry idea to share, then she looked down at her chewed up apple core and said, “you should write about an apple.” So that’s what I did.
An apple at its core knows nothing more
Than its existence.
It doesn’t know its color to the eye,
Deep red or vibrant green.
It doesn’t know the conditions of its skin,
Repulsive or appealing.
It doesn’t know how it compares
To other apples on the tree,
Or if fruits on other branches
May marvel at its beauty.
Because in many ways, it’s ignorant
To what it is and what it is isn’t.
And even if it knew,
Who’s to say it would believe it?
Raised in an environment dependent on reaction,
Fostered by the nutrients of external validation.
It’s never considered the possibility of more—
It’s accepted the purpose it’s been given.
So, it hangs suspended, discontented
As cheery leaves fall and brown baskets are filled to the brim.
Each sunrise revitalizes hope,
But every sunset brings the same disappointment.
It waits on the hand of acknowledgement.
But what if…what if that apple was never picked?
Left last on the branches
Until the moment of the first winter’s wind.
After enduring a season’s worth of hardship,
It all amounts—
To this.
As it plummets to the ground,
It’s faced with this final question,
Is an apple never picked just as radiant?
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