Claire L. Frankel – ‘Reapers’

 

The seasons roll by

first flowers and scent

then tiny apples – 

Bigger and bigger –

25 years in the blink of an eye.

“Your face has not changed at all!”

exclaimed Maria.

I can’t imagine why

except this farm

            these apples

            the drought

 and the rain –

A lifetime to explain. 

Ancient Jewish scrolls tell us

“Do not reap the corners of thy fields;

leave the edges for the poor and the hungry.”

And so in my two still-producing orchards

there are apples for gleaning 

in the end tiers and the edges.

Yet the old lady who used to fill

her apron and her bucket

(more of a thief than a gleaner)

doesn’t come anymore.

Either the reaper took her

or gentrification.

When the kids alight 

from the Caterpillar bus

I think to them, “Take an apple.

These here are sweet;

they’re good for you.”

But they cannot hear my thoughts

and throw Mars bars wrappers

on the path between the trees

for me to glean.

__________

For more than 40 years, Claire L. Frankel has supported herself in Information Technology, primarily by designing computer databases. She has also been writing poetry since she learned what a poem was and recently started publishing them. Her first published poem, ‘Deskbound,’ appeared in Oberon Magazine in 2019. Her first chapbook, “Working Woman Poetry,” was published by Leah Huete de Maines of Finishing Line Press in October 2020. Also during Covid, she published a second chapbook, “Plague Year Poetry,” and one of her Covid poems was included in the online journal of the Writer’s Institute of Albany, New York, sponsored by William Kennedy.