Apple's Core

Rhyme Royal V.

Original Stanza:

I have a haggard Home-thirst in my heart,
Which hurts at times with joy that's worse than fear,
As stronger is that love of grief, apart,
Than bitter, selfish or resentful tears,
And growing, this Homesickness, as death nears,
Will peel away those long, despairing nights
To find at apple’s core a shameless light ...

Additional Stanzas:

Indeed, if only there’d been temperance
Within the thorny garden walls of Eden --
And offered wisdom, had they, in this instance,
Practiced patience, sacrificing even
Understanding (ever eastwards leading) ...
But offered in the evening, cool and dim,
The apple would be ripe, and plucked by Him.

Then shameless light would fill my waking mind,
And Solomon would be my guide to Home,
And all the thorns could never make me blind,
And fair Constantinople, Eastern Rome,
Would be as like a seed in softest loam,
Which sprouts a flower at the turn of Spring:
A New Jerusalem, which He will bring.

Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens (2022) — not an apple tree, but it’ll have to do.

To those astute readers who have noticed that I have skipped from Rhyme Royal II to Rhyme Royal V, thank you for your attention to detail. Rhyme Royal III can be found in the postscript of The Western Arthurs Traverse, and Rhyme Royal IV is yet unpublished because I may, at some point, expand it into a ballad. I hope you have enjoyed skipping ahead with me; more to come …