[Lyric] Neglect (R.T. Smith)

Is the scent of apple boughs smoking
In the woodstove what I will remember
Of the Red Delicious I brought down, ashamed

That I could not convince its limbs to render fruit?
Too much neglect will do that, skew the sap's
Passage, blacken leaves, dry the bark and heart

I should have lopped the dead limbs early
And watched each branch with a goshawk's eye
Patching with medicinal pitch, offering water

Compost and mulch, but I was too enchanted
By pear saplings, flowers and the pasture
Too callow to believe that death's inevitable

For any living being unloved, untended
What remains is this armload of applewood
Now feeding the stove's smolder. Splendor

Ripens a final time in the firebox, a scarlet
Harvest headed, by dawn, to embers
Two decades of shade and blossoms - tarts
And cider, bees dazzled by the pollen
Spare elegance in ice - but what goes is gone
Smoke is all, through this lesson in winter

Regret, I've been given to remember
Smoke, and Red Delicious apples redder
Than a passing cardinal's crest or cinders