THE LAST APPLE

Each year it happens.

The apple tree viewed from my balcony

gives up its fruit

until at last one solitary apple

remains high up,

beyond reach,

riper, redder, more robust

than any of the others

that have fallen or been gathered.

Unmoved by rain,

unshaken by winds.

It is as if

this one remaining fruit

is determined to resist

the onset of winter.

Day after day

I awaken;

raise my bedroom blind,

rub my eyes

and seek it out

amidst the protecting foliage.

At first resistant to my gaze,

it then proudly displays

its presence,

as if to say

“Behold, I still remain,

a testament to the perseverance of Fall.”

Each year I too remain

despite the apple’s everlasting reminder

that I myself am transient

and will one day

be shaken from my bough.

I am reminded of O. Henry’s last leaf

painted by an aged artist

to give support and strength and sustenance

to failing hope of life’s recovery.

Perhaps the apple, too, is but a dab of oil

on canvas.

Indeed, am I myself a product of

an artist’s keen, unfailing eye;

living in some vast

parallel universe

adjacent to and yet unseen

by all those bygone friends,

Amidst an orchard of fallen, rotting apples?