WINTER APPLE By David Whyte

Let the apple ripen

on the branch

beyond your need

to take it down.

Let the coolness

of autumn

and the breathing,

blowing wind

test its adherence

to endurance,

let the others fall.

Wait longer

than you would,

go against yourself,

find the pale nobility

of quiet that ripening

demands…

watch with patience

as the silhouette emerges

and the leaves fall;

see it become

a solitary roundness

against a greying sky,

let winter come

and the first

frost threaten,

and then wake

one morning

to see the breath

of winter

has haloed

its redness

with light.

So that a full

two months

after you

should have

taken the apple

down

you hold it in

your closed hand

at last and bite

into the cool

sweetness

spread evenly

through every

single atom

of a pale

and yielding

structure.

So that you taste

on that cold,

grey day,

not only

the after reward

of a patience

remembered,

not only

the summer

sunlight

of a postponed

perfection,

but the sweet

inward stillness

of the wait itself.

Behauddin youve been left here without your father.
the great Mevlana.
from now on you’ll have no friend, no form to love.
only what’s real.
when you feel separate you’re in your imagination.
there’s a light that’s the opposite of fire.
there’s nothing here but love.
and mystery.
welcome to the tavern where drunkards get sober.

In this orchard there’s no summer or winter
roses open in every direction.

Anyone who’s seen the beloved wonders,
where are all the others.
this has nothing to do with thinking or belief.