the golden apples

Ok, they are pears, grown on the Garden of Eden farm in Eastern Long Island. They taste amazing, like cream soda and pineapples, and sadly, these have all been eaten.

I keep convincing myself that they are apples even though I should well know they are pears. I was standing in front of a box of them for 2 hours last Saturday while on my CSA distribution shift. It's a little awkward, standing there with a dry erase marker and a laminated list of who has singed up for a fruit share. Standing there under a tent under a crabapple tree while the sun beats down on those in line waiting to weigh their plums and pears. Unlike me they don't have a view of the monarchs on the butterfly bush backlit by the sun, black-lined russet panels enflamed with sunlight. The people stand there in silence, mostly, navigating the terms and conditions honorably. Lucky for me everyone who started to take fruit had actually signed up for it, accept for one family who I was too clueless to bar from that which they were not entitled.

That's always the way with golden apples, there's always someone stealing them, and someone letting it happen. Has to be. I suppose the apples symbolize perfection that doesn't seem to be in the cards for us humans, and maybe not for the Gods, either. The apple Eve bit was not golden, but still she did good. No folly, no life, no triumph.