Tag: Simon Denegri

The Apple

If I said to you that a single, large red apple
Appeared on our sapling this year,
I would not blame you for being unimpressed.

But 12 months ago, the very same tree
Bore no fruit on its withered branches,
And its leaves curled in pain like arthitic fingers.

Unexpected, miraculous, by late summer
The apple was bursting with red-faced pride
On the low, sagging branch from which it hung.

Not even the autumn gale that finally shook
The apple from the tree for a passing
Hungry fox, could wipe our smiles away.

For isn’t this what nature does? Bring hope
Where there was none. And where there is hope
There is a tree that grows stronger by the day.

Simon Denegri

First draft Dec 20, published May 2021

A new poem: ‘Light cast away’

Light cast away by Simon Denegri (Dec 2013)

He stood in the kitchen
The lights dimmed
And the windows shut
Tight.

He stood and wondered
How long it would be
Before someone cared
Enough

To touch him awake
Asking no more of him
Than love,
Love.

But with every singular day that passes
His self shrinks inside skin that feels
Old and cold and hard
Like food left on the side.

Or abandoned, faded toys in a winter garden
Like the old linoleum kitchen floor
Or the encrusted ketchup jar
Long-forgotten at the foot of the fridge door.

II

In the evenings
And on monochrome days
He senses the walls close in
Around him.

Minutes become hours.
Hours turn to days.
In unremitting, open-ended
Silent, lonely horror.

III

Now,
His only words are those
That churn inside his head

Imagined conversations.
Or written on the page
In isolated rage

Were the phone to ring
Or someone knock at the door
He would not answer, fearing
He could not unlock his tongue.

IV

No second place laid
No bed freshly made
No shirts ironed
Or morning teas-made

One by one
He ticks off the names and faces
Of loved-ones
And those that were simple passes.
IV

This morning in the hallway
The last electric bulb went out
Its filament burnt
Its light cast away.