Apple Blossom Song
A cardinal struts in the snowbound yard, making a home
in the bare branches. For fifty years he saw them first
and called her to the window, but this year he is scattered
in the field, and she watches the trees alone.
She stocks feeders, fills the heated bath, and prays
for spring to show her something bright again, and break
the solitude, this hermit’s share of winter days.
She counts the weeks, that come and go on red wings,
and as though the years were stuck in amber, she remembers
her love as a ballplayer, in stockings and a red cap
with a winged emblem. She threads a flower in her hair
and shivers in her sun-dappled skin, and hears
an old familiar voice saying Lovely, come
and while away the years beneath the apple blossoms.
| Will Johnston |
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levelheaded: Apple Blossom Song
“Apple Blossom Song” is a poem about a widow who, observing a cardinal in the yard, is reminded of her lost husband. Unlike many poems we’ve published, it doesn’t take much effort on the reader’s part to discern this narrative. Will Johnston uses simple diction in complete, grammatically correct sentences to invite readers into the emotional space of the poem’s lead character. Yet, in the end, the beckoning call of an “old familiar voice” adds an element of mystery to an otherwise straightforward story.
One of Johnston’s most effective methods of creating empathy within the reader is the speaker’s reporter-like distance from the poem’s events. By not expounding on the widow’s woes, Johnston makes them even more heartbreaking. The business activities of the bird (“The cardinal struts in the snowbound yard, making a home in the branches”) are matched by the dailiness of the woman’s work (“She stocks feeders, fills the heated bath, and prays / for spring to show her something bright again”). Here, the pain of having a spouse “scattered / in the field” feels numbing as it is paired with the ordinary tasks of tending to bird feeders and baths.
Breaking through the widow’s pain, and in a sense causing it, is her memory of her husband: “she remembers / her love as a ballplayer, / in stockings and a red cap / with a winged emblem.” Interestingly, the word “love” here could be a pet name for the husband or it could be the sentiment itself–either one being beautiful, youthfully radiant, fleeting.
Amidst the “snowbound yard” and “bare branches” emblematic of death, the widow “threads a flower in her hair / and shivers in her sun-dappled skin.” While these lines may well show the widow’s insistence on life, the poem’s final mysterious call–“Lovely, come / and while away the years beneath the apple blossoms” reads a couple different ways. These lines could be a recollection, and as such taken as another symbol of perseverance, as a celebration of nature, youth, and beauty. At the same time, they also read as if the husband were calling his wife to join him “beneath” the earth, softly suggesting that there is beauty in aging, and ultimately, relief in dying.
– The Editors
