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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Apple Tree<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n by Alan Sleater, with image by Steev Burgess<\/em><\/p>\n Early in Autumn, our first crop of apples, It was an old misshapen tree that looked In Spring, the small, white, rose-like petals The next year\u2019s little miracle of bloom The Apple Tree by Alan Sleater, with image by Steev Burgess Early in Autumn, our first crop of apples,Plentiful, but small and bitter to eatEmerged from the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":579,"featured_media":13870,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1660],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/579"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Plentiful, but small and bitter to eat
Emerged from the oval-shaped posies of leaves.
Our apple tree bore fruit. We marked the date.<\/p>\n
As though a push would knock it to the ground.
Dad wedged a plank beneath a knotted junction,
Tested its resilience, and declared it sound.<\/p>\n
Were profuse and pink-veined; the fruit never came.
\u201cWe\u2019ll cut it back,\u201d said dad, \u201cencourage growth.\u201d
We laid the heavy branches in a line.<\/p>\n
Promised new life and fruitfulness to come.
But dad, hard pruner to the core, told us
The tree was cankerous, and chopped it down;
Still digging it out in the evening, late,
That year when Thatcher brought to Downing Street
The principle of cutting, branch and root,
Those unproductive trees that never fruit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"