J.P. White

Horse Under the Apple Tree

How can I tell you what aging is
when just this morning I got up in the dark
and walked through the house like I used to do
when I was four and thought a bird at a window wanted
to come in for breakfast.  Some morning nights,
I’m afraid of what’s coming next
and how, with a few more wrong turns
combined with memory and its accusations,
I might not venture over the next hill
and across the bridge to where the horse
with a blaze on its face stands under the wormy apple.
The thing I once learned about the dark is it’s never the same.
And what do I know with certainty about the day?
It too is always threaded into something else, a bird at the glass,
wanting in, wanting out, who can say for sure?

Author: J.P. White

J.P. White is the author of two novels, Every Boat Turns South and The Last Tale of Norah Bow. His sixth book of poems, A Tree Becomes a Room, was the 2022 winner of the White Pine Poetry Prize, selected by Danusha Lemeris.  His seventh book, Rough Sea, was the 2024 of the Grayson Book Prize, selected by Chase Twichell.   He is the editor-at-large for Plant-Human Quarterly. His poems have appeared in The Nation, The New Republic, Poetry and many other places over the last 50 years.

 

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