Russell Kincaid

In the last spring I ever knew,         In those last days, I sat in the forsaken orchard         Where beyond fields of greenery shimmered         The hills at Miller's Ford;         Just to muse on the apple tree         With its ruined trunk and blasted branches,         And shoots of green whose delicate blossoms         Were sprinkled over the skeleton tangle,         Never to grow in fruit.         And there was I with my spirit girded         By the flesh half dead, the senses numb         Yet thinking of youth and the earth in youth, -         Such phantom blossoms palely shining         Over the lifeless boughs of Time.         O earth that leaves us ere heaven takes us!         Had I been only a tree to shiver         With dreams of spring and a leafy youth,         Then I had fallen in the cyclone         Which swept me out of the soul's suspense         Where it's neither earth nor heaven.