Frost Apples (or Nothing Doing)
Reading Schuyler while waiting for
Mike makes me think of driving
through Northwest Arkansas
as a child, stopping for apple
butter in Tontitown (now home
to a grape festival and the Rollin’
Relics Car Show). But all that
reminiscing is not for me,
with hardly an ounce (a gig?
a byte?) of capacity (like the
ginger ale, “never had it,
never will”). It’s not for
lack of nostalgia, surely
(this diaristic process, a
case in point: “Well,
look where I am --> the old Roasters,
which is now Torrefazione Italia.”).
Ah, more poems. Why worry about
how it all works in together.
Would I even like apple butter
any more? I know I’d love
the drive, perhaps in October, a
firestorm of Ozark Mountain leaves
along the way. The problem is
a lack of focus. I can’t just
stand in the drizzle all day
(or sit with my elbows on the sill
looking out at the drizzle)
like Jimmy did. (Unlike me
to use the familiar that way;
I never met him, but what if I
had? We’d no doubt have little
patience for each other’s company.)
All that struck me was the
(yes) memory of driving the
winding roads (before the new
I-540) to Tontitown. Maybe
that’s where I was that same
dour October day when
he rhapsodized on a bluet
(“There were frost
apples on the trees in
the field below the house.”)
Who knows? And nevertheless,
on with my own dour story and
“Oh, I see Mike – his hair is shorter –
so I’ll close for now –”
