Don Edwards has published five books of poetry and his work is represented regularly in poetry journals.  He holds a Master’s Degree in English and has taught this subject at the university level.  He currently lives and writes in Los Angeles.

My Dad Had Apple Trees

My dad had apple trees that he loved more than he did some of us
They were icy gray and dead to the touch in winter
The cold air froze them in place stagnant and quiet
But they were secretly alive and though they seemed barren and lost in February
Spring brought pink blossoms that were born from each colorless frame
An umbrella of soft pink skin from which juicy red fruit sprung by July
They just needed the time 

My dad was a Minister of The Gospel
He believed in life everlasting and that God is Love
We ate his apples and marveled that he could manage such a process
With his head so far into the sky dreaming of a place that none of us could see
While the leaves turned glossy green and shielded us beneath each canopy
And the heart-shaped fruit grew and hung as heavy as the now pliant limbs
Could hold bent just above the warm dark turf 

We never saw the connection between the eternal and the cyclical 
That which is ever changing always evolving into the thing it already has been
Eternal is forever but is never the same from moment to moment
Except that it is exactly the way it was last year of the same season
It is the rolling wheel turning toward its own horizon growing until the end
Which is yet the beginning of what is to be as it was and will be again
This is the way of love and it lasts eternal but it is only the same for a moment 

As are we — never ending ever changing forever and ever 
Amen 

They Slid Off Your Paper Gown

They slid off your paper gown 
And placed you gently upon the gurney 
Your hair drifted to hide your eyes
And across you the linen rolled out and down

Then they wheeled you away
Out the door into the flowing endless hallway
Where I was not allowed to follow
To a place I feared you might stay

They cut you open juicy ripe tomato
Your skin no longer held back the flow
Of your warm and consequential life 
Which spewed out like human fruit upon the table

They picked out all the rotten spots
And put you back a little less than before
Still pulsing within softly mellow
A static self with death now sewn into your thoughts 

Then sent you back supine and silent
Your vision blocked by benumbed eyes
Your self forever changed by the required loss
A trade settled for some added days of quiet

I Need You

I need you
That’s all the message said
Not specific as to how or why
Just the subject verb object
As simple as it gets
As primal and necessary as love is
Nothing else required

I need you 
I don’t remember writing it
Not the inadequacy nor the action
Yet there it is
Fear in the moment of realization
A three syllable request
When life has become too much 

I need  you