I won't presume to regale friends with odes
of the storms that all but uprooted you:
we grew up together didn't we.

I remember those spindly limbs
like long hair in the wind, but see
now you are stronger than most.

Scarred by traumatic memories,
incessant pests still all about you,
at last you are grown noble.

I'll sit at your foot to catch the spirit
for only now are sweet apples set free,
sadly unthinkable in years gone by.