Last autumn I picked a juicy apple
And I planted Its core in a pot
And I waited for something to happen
And of course nothing happened
Until this Spring
By then I had forgotten
About this hidden potential,
When suddenly I saw
Three tiny beings
Poking up in my kitchen
Oh! How I was glad!
Such surprise and such joy!
A coreful of pips,
Waiting in the dark until they knew
By some magic trick of light and air
That Spring had begun
They Now was the Time
Yet now
I see one seedling is failing
One seedling is stunted
One seedling grows tall and determined
By subterranean agreement
Down in the realm of darkness
Where agreements with Hades,
Ereshkigal or
Arawn whose sacred land this Apple grew in
In whose soil they have made their agreement
How would it have gone, such an agreement?
I am the greater!
No, it is I who should thrive!
What about me? Should I not flourish, at a your expense?
Perhaps there is even one pip who never awoke at all
Down there,
Lost,
Cells returned back to Arawn’s soul
To return once more as another being
I have not forgotten:
Before I was in this middle-world
I too made an underground agreement
With Arawn in His world
To thrive at some expense;
Let me not shy from this truth,
I am not here unfettered by such a tally
Lives of countless given,
For me to thrive:
Bird,
Beast,
Plant,
I have taken others’ air and soil and land and water,
I have stood on the shoulders of many
And I have thrived
Such agreements exact high price
To live is to be held account
To make such an agreement
Means this to be true
Yet that is not the whole story:
For when I leave this world
I will become sacrifice for another’s agreement
And so the Circle is complete
The apple seedlings grow
Enacting their underground truth
I am merely the gardener
Nwyfre 