By Prem Gongaju

A tree not fully into the season of bearing
Dropped an apple off her unbearable bough.

Earth entombed the untimely yield
With other fallen ones in her bosom.

A man from the adjacent field was vexed
By the dull sound of the fall.

He came with an axe aiming
For the trunk of the apple tree.

Being no match for his brute force,
I told him the tale of a barren tree.

He growled and grumbled,
Then lumbered back to his field
Strewn with stones.

(And I thought I sensed Robert Frost’s sound
Echoing in the “cave of the mouth.”)