Quick Apple Turnovers
Looking forward to: Fall holidays! Halloween is always a blast, and while I don't do much for Thanksgiving, it is a great excuse to eat my favorite foods!
Favorite Drink/Treat: I love both hot cocoa and apple cider for the colder months! And as oddly specific as it is, barbecued hot dog pieces. The recipe my family uses for the barbecue is just...so good.
Best Trick: Do Spear's astounding frisbee skills count?
Grimm's Scary TalesI only finish things right before the deadline, apparently, but I complete a
poem for the
fall memories category if that's okay! It's a work of fiction because I really wanted to tell a story with it!
I
The book took both your clumsy hands -
One to clutch its wearing spine,
The other to trace the words,
One by one
As they fell newly voiced from you;
They didn't all come quickly
or loudly
or correctly
But you pieced their tale together
And they said the forest is old, and mysterious, and alive
You knew that already
Because you could feel it in the gnarled bark
Wrinkled deeply as your papaw's hands,
And you could see it in the curving boughs
Hunched from weathered storms,
And you could hear it in the crackling leaves
Bunched beneath your velcro shoes
You'd lean against the wood and breathe
In little ethereal puffs
And never leave the edge
II
You wrapped your fears in silk and briar
The way the funnel web in the roses
Wrapped her prey
And you followed the deer trails
Into the forest's heart -
It beat with singing birds
And whispering winds
And a gurgling creek
You place your hands against an oak;
You climb.
The canopy's gusts are more insistent,
When they flicker against you
And in them
You think you hear
Welcome
A pair of squirrels scuffle
A dove mourns
A doe tiptoes across the stream
All undisturbed
By your presence
You feel
Welcome
III
You devoured stories
Like you were a prisoner
And they were your last meal
In the heart you learned
to tell your own
You plucked swords from forked braches
And wielded them in epic wars
Against the thorny beasts
In the underbrush
You look for clues
In snail-shell spirals
And in the colors
Donned by tumbling leaves
Each crime solved with haste
In line-ruled notebooks
You passed the crafted tales
To Papaw
As he taught you to carve
And he smiled
With crinkled eyes
And shared his own in turn
IV
There was talk of money
And opportunity
And moving
And your last glimpse of the forest
Was through the rearview mirror
V
Your office
Has a window
Outside are
More offices
VI
You still release
Tiny wooden beasts
From firewood prisons
Just the way you practiced
With Papaw
You give some to your daughter
Who holds them like glass
And she begs you
To tell the stories
VII
At autumn's arrival
It's your wife
Who suggests
Going back
VIII
There is no forest.
There is a grove
Tucked between one parking lot
And another
You hover at the edge, because there is
Only edge at which to hover.
You start walking to your car
Until something jabs your back
And your daughter is holding two sticks,
And asks you
To swordfight
IX
You and your family
Set up the fire pit
You brought from home
And roast marshmallows
And hot dogs
And the leaves swirl off branches
In greeting, and together
You tell
New stories
As read by Innmemoria, tale-teller of the autumn forest