When my parents were apple trees - Victoria Gatehouse
One of the Top 40 submissions in our 2023 Urban Tree Festival writing competition.
When my parents were apple trees
In the summer of my thirteenth year
I made a hammock from old sheets,
knotted it between two apple trees
that stood in our small backyard.
Both gnarled, one propped at the hip,
together, they bore my weight
as I drowsed through the thick
secret rustle of hot afternoons
a notebook across my knees,
each page a fretwork of shadow and light.
I scowled away Mum, bearing juice
and Dad when he checked the knots.
It was to the trees I whispered
and they bent their heads to listen
as I gently swung, an unripe fruit
carried like one of their own -
green and troubled beneath the skin,
a dark starring of pips at the heart.
When the windfalls came, I tasted
my own wasp-sharpness in their flesh
until Mum showed me how to bake them -
just a little sugar, a gentle heat.
Victoria Gatehouse
Victoria Gatehouse is an award-winning poet, a children’s writer, a scientist and a walker. She loves to spend time in the presence of trees.